I860.] 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



537 



attempt to pass current among farmers twenty- 

 five absurdities so gross, for established facts 

 in physical science, or even in statistical sci- 

 ence, as the twenty-five Rothamsted ' fixed data' 

 in question." 



1 would now wish to state that Mr. Lawes' 

 experiments or observations cannot apply to 

 Thorley's Food for Cattle, and that even if they 

 did apply, his judgment is unworthy of credit, 

 as b'^J^Hp of calculating the value of cattle 

 food-^Wewmeous, and which must be placed 

 among* the false deductions made by him in 

 relation" to the doctrines of Liebig — that the 

 proper use of ^my food leaves a clear/pi ofit, of 

 cent per cent td^e. m^rchaser, the flk>% having 

 a two-fold " alL.'^-^H' one nutritive the. other 

 condi mental — tMx£|lr. Lawes' experiment is> 

 an exceptional of>( ' failure from n 



ment, and that 



onclusion he dr 



jfrom 



this Rothamsted blunder is absurd, and similar 

 to the many hasty conclusions drawn from 

 guano failures. * >| ! 



Mr. Lawes' feeding statistics are only hypo- 

 thetical data deduced from very questionable 

 premises, and that the to ViHte of twenty-five ar- 

 ticles — cotton seed-cake* (of which Mr. Lawes,' 

 by the by, is a vendor) being at the top — con- 

 sequently does not belong to + he science' of sta- 

 tistics, and therefore can b^Ho safe guide. |o 

 farmers. To talk of theipftinurial value of 

 condiments, as he does, is ridiculously absurd j? 

 for the very use of condiments is to enable cat- 

 tle to work up more of their food into carcase 

 weight, and consequently to reduce the quan- 

 tify of manure. 



Ever since I knewanythirfg about cattle, ex- 

 perience has satisfied me that health was the 

 true index to profit; and this is equally true, 

 whether the animal is a horse, a cow, a sheep, 

 or a pig. The greater the degree of health, 

 the stronger the horse, and the more work he 

 returns for his food. The more healthy the 

 cow, the greater the quantity of milk she 

 yields, and the richer its quality. The better 

 the health of the fattening, ox, sheep, or pig, 

 the more rapid the increase of weight, and the 

 finer the quality of the carcass. 



Again, I have always found a cool, soft, sleek 

 skin, and a bright eye, the best index to health 

 and quality. I need not stop to prove the 

 soundness of this proposition, as all my read- 

 ers must be familiar with the importance which 

 farmers, butchers, dealers, and others engaged 

 in the management ,and commerce of cattle 

 place upon " handle." Were any amateur to 

 place his fat beast in the scales, and to tell the 

 butcher the weight, the practical man of busi- 

 ness, w T ho was purchasing for the purpose of 

 serving his customers and realizing a fair pro- 

 fit,j»ould naturally laugh at the ignorance of 

 tiyy.iovice and his scales, and proceed to judge 

 wMa the index "handle." My readers will 

 jffadily believe me that the amount of handling 

 in the markets is something considerable. 

 There is no weighing in scales there, nor in 



any fat-stock market where " practice with sci- 

 ence'' is brought to bear upon the subject. 

 Much less does the intelligent farmer require 

 scales and weights to know when his cattle are 

 thriving, laying on fat evenly, and paying for 

 their condiment and their food generally, all 

 that he needs being a handle. 



Mr. Lawes is wrong in respect to the price, 

 as he does not take into "consideration the med- 

 icinal and nutritive value of condimental food. 

 I will, therefore, now offer a few extracts from 

 a little work just published in England, viz., 

 " Cattle Cookery,"* by William Burness, Esq., 

 whose opinion 1 consider of more value than 

 Miv Lawes. 



" The condiments for cattle now being man- 

 ufactured, possess both nutritive and medi- 

 cinal pros^rties of value. They differ very 

 much froiS each other in this respect, but they 

 ill havj 

 the 



both — and therefore it necessarily 

 hat however different they may be, the 

 " vatiJ-i of each depends upon its own 

 pi 4<ii|(ties. Their nutritive values 

 y R' 'Val estimated according to some 

 l their analyses approximate, 

 or the sake of argument, that 



igimmon object in view — to improve 

 lwf man and beast, and to economize 



^nior, 



sftalsiarct tb 

 Let us, sur 



accordif^^ ^Bp standard their nutritive prop- 

 erties J||H^^ £11 per ton. Next their 

 med^^.^1' aiues should be estimated accord- 

 ing tr$8^!effect produced by their medicinal 

 properties. We must, therefore, quote an ex- 

 ample for illustration. We shall take Dr. 

 Brown's cow, whose daily yield of milk was 

 increased from two quarts to four quarts, by 

 its food being seasoned with three pennyworth 

 of Thorley's Condiment at £56 per ton. Now, 

 estimating the milk at three pence per quart, 

 a small sum for the rich milk of a small family 

 cow, equal to London cVeam ; but say only six- 

 pence the two quarts, this would bring the 

 medicinal value of Therley's Condiment to the 

 enormous sum of £112, and its total value to 

 £123 ; this being the sum of the nutritive and 

 medicinal values when added together. Dr. 

 Brown's profit would therefore be £67 per ton, 

 according to his own experiment, thus proving 

 that the nutritive and medicinal properties of 

 a condiment determine its cheapness, and not 

 its money price: in other words, the highest 

 priced cattle food in the market, is the cheap- 

 est to the farmer and cow keeper. " 

 Then again Mr. Burness says: 

 " As to objections, many have been advan- 

 ced against cattle foods; but they are so ground- 

 less, as to render refutation almost superfluous. 

 There appears to be, in not a few cases, a total 

 misconception of what they really are, or the 

 grand object for which they are manufactured ; 

 for some of them, although unfit to be given as 

 food alone, have actually been so given to stock 



* A copy of which I will give your readers 

 free, on applying for same at 21 Broadway. 



