28 rLLi:t!rois dairyimen's association. 



Of the elements we have just considered, nitrogen is the one with which 

 we now have to deal. Though it constitutes four-fifths of the atmosphere 

 which we breathe, it is not known that one atom of it is directly absorbed 

 by us, or by the vegetable creation. Yet it is indispensable to both. It not 

 only dilutes the oxygen, making it endurable, when without this it would 

 soon burn us up, but by its simple presence it enables plants and animals to 

 perform functions which would otherwise be impossible. It constitutes an 

 important portion of animal and vegetable bodies, but all or nearly all is 

 rendered available only through food. The vegetable gets it through the 

 fertilizers in the soil, which are dissolved by water, and the animal, including 

 man, gets it through eating the vegetable or eating some other animal that 

 has eaten the vegetable. 



Nitrogen is the most coquettish and shy of all the elements. It is not 

 only the motor power, but the liberty-loving element of the universe. It is 

 extremely cautious and reluctant about forming any sort of a union with 

 anything ; and when it forms one, it appears to do it with a sort of mental 

 reservation and determination to break it at the first opportunity. It will 

 not be permanently chained, and it breaks its unions without notice or cere- 

 mony. It is the explosive element in gun-powder, gun-cotton, dynamite and 

 all explosive compounds, and it is by a kind of continuous explosion, caused 

 by the nitrogen taken in our food in its willful struggles to free itself, that 

 we are able to think, move, or even have a conscious being. All our mental 

 and physical energies are dependent upon the combinations, recombinations 

 and liberations of this element in our organism. 



Thus we see the importance of the two elements— the nitrogenous as well 

 as the carbonaceous— that we derive from our food, and the reasons for using 

 these terms. We are kept warm by the carbonaceous, and kept in motion 

 by the nitrogenous elements of our food— and so it is with the entire animal 

 kingdom. 



You will notice that the elements we have been considering are gaseous 

 and atmospheric. They are the most important of any of the elements, if 

 we measure importance by proportion. Ther^ are other essential elements 

 derived from the soil ; but these are so widely and evenly distributed, and so 

 easily appropriated, that we need pay little attention to them. The amount 

 of the minerals — or that portion which is deriyed from the earth — is easily 

 found by reducing bodies to ashes. Burn any object, and whatever in it be- 

 longs to the air will float into the air, and whatever belongs to the earth will 

 fall to the earth— ashes to ashes. 



Conditions, too, are essential. We cannot feed carbon in the form of 

 wood or of coal, nor nitrogen in the form of nitric acid or of nitrate of pot- 

 ash. All food must be soluble before it is digestible, and solubility often 

 depends on what appears to be almost trifles. But more of this farther on. 



Well, how is the farmer to tell what the composition of different foods is, 

 and how to combine them ? As I said in the beginning, science has been at 

 work for everybody. It has been at work for him, and prepared convenient 

 tables of analyses for his use. If you want to get them in the cheapest and 

 most convenient form in which they have been presented, buy Prof. E. W. 

 Stewart's recent work on " Feeding Animals." It will cost you $2, and, if 

 intelligently studied, will prove the best investment you ever made. 



