THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



175 



and the cob, both in pieces and finely chewed, 

 everywhere mixed with the hay and grass which 

 the animal had eaten. If, then, the corn and 

 cob, after being crushed by the jaws and teeth 

 pass into the first stomach, why will it not after 

 being crushed by the iron teeth of a mill ? 



We proceed to state what is the true digestive 

 process of ruminants, as the ox, sheep, &c, and 

 our authority is the best, Mr. Youatt. 



The throat or gullet, or as it is technically 

 called, the esophagus, forms a canal from the 

 mouth to the entrance of the fourth stomach. 

 Along the base of this canal are openings into 

 the first and second stomachs. Immediately 

 under the first opening, is the rumen or first 

 stomach. "All the food," says Mr. Youatt, 

 "when first swallowed, goes thereto be preserved 

 for the act of rumination, and a portion, and oc- 

 casionally the greatest portion, of the fluids that 

 pass down the gullet, enter the rumen." In the 

 calf, this opening "instinctively closes by an 

 act of organic life," when it swallows the milk ; 

 and it is not the form of the aliment or food, or 

 the force with which it descends the gullet, that 

 causes it to pass into the rumen of the older an- 

 imals. 



After being received into the first stomach, the 

 food traverses every portion of it, without being 

 changed; except softened and covered with some 

 mucous, and as it approaches the opening 

 through which it passed into it, it is forced 

 through another opening into the reticulum or 

 second stomach. The Valley Farmer says that 

 it does not enter this stomach' until it is chewed 

 the second time, upon what authority we do not 

 know. The office of the second stomach is to 

 force the food back through the opening into it, 

 into the gullet, which carries it back to the mouth, 

 to undergo the second chewing, or as it is called, 

 chewing' the cud. In the process, it is thor- 

 oughly masticated, and being again swallowed, 

 it passes into the manyplus or third stomachy 

 The business of this stomach is to reduce the 

 food to a pulp, in which form it passes into the 

 abomasum or fourth stomach. This last one se- 

 cretes the gastric juice, which digests the food by 

 its chemical action, and converts it into chyme. 

 The gastric juice, as we have observed, does not 

 act on the thin outer covering of the grain of 

 corn. Hence if it reaches the fourth stomach 

 whole, it will not be digested, but must be eva- 

 cuated whole. If it is broken, it will be digested, 

 unless taken in such large quantities that there 

 is not enough of gastric juice to dissolve it. 

 Every feeder knows that many grains are not 

 broken in process ; hence the use of mills to aid 

 mastication. If these mills leave the meal with 

 "sharp and flinty corners," so does the crushing 

 operation of the teeth. This we know from what 

 we observed in the paunch we examined. But 

 these sharp corners are softened, they are cov- 

 ered with mucous and are dissolved by the gas- 

 tric juice, and cannot, therefore produce that in- 

 testinal derangement spoken of by the Valley 

 Farmer. Improper feeding, colds, or other cau- 

 ses, produce them— if not, then long since would 



the feeders, wiio used crushers, have seen the de- 

 leterious effect of the sharp cornered meal. 



The only grinder which the Editors of the 

 Farmer have seen, that will grind corn and cob 

 meal fine enough, is that of Mr. Straub of Cin- 

 cinnati. They qualify this 'expression with the 

 phase " at one operation," but what it means we 

 cannot tell — whether at one handling or but one 

 grinding. Have they seen Fetlon's Portable 

 Mill? It grinds superfine flour, and superfine 

 meal too ; so fine that a dozen mastications could 

 not make it finer. So we challenge you, Mr. Far- 

 mer, with a Felton against your Straub ; the 

 contest to come off at our next State Fair, which 

 as it has thrown open- the premiums to be con- 

 tested by every body, will be an inducement for 

 Mr. Straub " to be and appear." 



The writer after conceding our first proposi- 

 tion, asks: "whether the gastric issue of the 

 fourth stomach is not a sufficient solvent to digest 

 the course meal of the crusher." To this ques- 

 tion we would first reply, that experience and ob- 

 servation around the barnyard where this meal 

 has been fed, emphatically answers No. But a 

 more conclusive answer is found in the wisdom 

 displayed by the Divine artist in providing the 

 animal with that complicated and beautifully ar- 

 ranged digestive apparatus, no part of which has 

 been formed in vain. Gross food when given to 

 a ruminant in a form that prevents it from pass- 

 ing through all the various processes of digestion 

 cannot be fully prepared for perfect assimilation. 

 The changes which the fluid secreted by the va- 

 rious departments of the digestive apparatus 

 produce on alimentary matter, is by solution and 

 chemical action. Now digestion cannot be per- 

 fect unless the food is given in such a form as to 

 force it to take that course in its downward pas- 

 sage as will cause it to pass through ail the va- 

 rious forms of digestion, each of which contri- 

 bute their proper fluids to prepare it for the per- 

 fect action of the next. 



The first process towards digestion, is mastica- 

 tion ; this is not merely to crush the food and 

 reduce it to a pulpy state, but also to imbrue it 

 [intimately with saliva. Saliva, so abundantly 

 | secreted by ruminants while chewing the cud, 

 performs an essential part in the process of di- 

 gestion, being in fact the chief agent in the con- 

 version of starch into sugar, or in other words, 

 its digestion. Modern researches have shown, 

 as fully set forth by Dr. Carpenter in his Human 

 Physiology, that it is by this fluid, and not the 

 gastric juice, that the amylaceous elements of 

 food are prepared for assimilation. The change 

 which commences in the mouth, is in a great 

 degree suspended in the stomach, to be renewed 

 when the food passes into the duodenum, (or first 

 bowel) where it is mingled with the pancreatic 

 juice, a fluid closely resembling saliva in its 

 properties. Hence the necessity for thorough 

 mastication ; hence the advantage of mixing the 

 meal with the hay or straw, which secures its 

 passage into the paunch, or first stomach, and its 

 consequent rumination. When, the corn and cob 

 is merely crushed in the iron mills, referred to 



