152 



Rations for Farm Stock. 



albuminoids or flesh formers in constructing the rations which 

 follow, for the amides are not given separately in ordinary Food 

 Tables, and they affect results so slightly that sufficient allow- 

 ance for all practical purposes can be made for them by taking 

 the proportion of nitrogenous matter in a diet a trifle higher than 

 otherwise might be done. The amides in 56 lb. of turnips 

 would not form more than one-tenth of the total nitrogenous 

 matter in a winter ration of a milking cow. 



Moreover, there are some striking facts in cattle and sheep 

 feeding which lead one to hesitate in dissociating too readily 

 the albuminoids and amides. For instance, thousands of 

 young growing sheep are well fattened on turnips alone 

 every winter, making flesh and wool as well as fat in the 

 process. Now supposing each such hogget (teg) to eat 

 2 stones of swedes a day, it would obtain rather above 

 one-third of a pound of nitrogenous matter, which if entirely 

 albuminoid would be about sufficient for the sheep's require- 

 ments so far as flesh-forming food is concerned. But half 

 of it is not albuminoid, but amide, which is not regarded as 

 flesh-forming food. Again, in bygone days, many a good 

 carcase of Scotch beef has been fed exclusively during the 

 fattening period on oat straw and swedes, perhaps at the rate of 

 6 stones of swedes and 2 stones of straw a day. This diet would 

 contain something over lb. of digestible nitrogenous matter, 

 sufficient for the slow feeding of an adult beast if it were all truly 

 albuminoid, but as half the nitrogenous matter of the swedes 

 consists of amides, the animal is left with no more than 1 lb. of 

 digestible albuminoids for tissue forming — an altogether inade- 

 quate amount according to the teachings of all the feeding trials 

 of recent years. Now it has been proved that, be the 

 eaten quantity of albuminoids ever so small, some of it 

 gets broken up in the animal system to form fat instead 

 of fleshy tissue, and may it not be that the amides, by 

 being similarly broken up for this purpose, prevent this 

 diversion of albuminoids from their special flesh-forming 

 function, and thus effect a saving of albuminoid waste ? 

 If so, then up to a certain point amides would be rightly 

 reckoned with albuminoids in making ration calculations. 



As one pound of fat goes as far in heat production or 



