462 Agricultural Chemistry. — Pig Feeding. 



selling price of the meat alone produced upon the farm must be 

 less than that of the food consumed — and that the profit of the 

 feeding process is to be found in the remaining product, namely, 

 in those parts of the food which are rejected by the animal, and 

 Avhich, under the title of 3fa.nure, give fresh fertility to the soil, 

 and thus supply a second product for the market. 



Were it true, indeed, that as a rule the difference between the 

 purchasing and selling price of the fatting animal was equal to, or 

 more, than the cost of his food, it is evident that the profit of the 

 feeding process would cease to depend, as at present supposed, 

 only upon the united value of meat and manure — and the latter 

 might then be obtained, in any quantity, fi^ee of expense I On 

 such a supposition as this, the economical employment of im- 

 ported and artificial manures would, of course, be at an end ; 

 and, unless the rule applied equally to the consumption of the 

 expensive green crops, as to purchased and saleable food, it 

 might even be a question whether the principles of rotation were 

 not entirely fallacious, and its practice ruinous I 



Much as we anticipate that careful scientific investigation will 

 conduce to the improvement of our national agriculture, we are far 

 from expecting any important revolution in the main principles 

 involved in the current practice of the best farmers. On the other 

 hand, it is our firm conviction, that it is to a more thorough and 

 generally diffused understanding of those principles — such as shall 

 ensure the more complete fulfilment, in the daily practices of the 

 farm, of the ends they are calculated to attain — that we must look 

 for any such improvement. Far be it from us to assert that the 

 mutual relationship between breeding, feeding, manuring, and 

 the growth of green crops and of corn, as already fixed by expe- 

 rience, will always remain as at present. That this relationship 

 will be subject to fluctuation, or even to modifications of a more 

 permanent kind — as the result, as well of the progress of know- 

 ledge as of causes of a commercial character — we do not doubt ; 

 but we would have it more generally understood, that the most 

 legitimate and useful province of agricultural chemistry, at least 

 for the present, is to investigate and explain the recognised 

 practices of the day, and thereby provide such data for the 

 guidance of the intelligent farmer as shall enable him more fully 

 and economically to carry out the principles therein involved. 



In the arrangement of our experiments on the feeding of Pigs, 

 it was our object to ascertain, not only the amount of increase 

 obtainable from a given quantity of certain approved foods, but 

 to determine the most advantageous proportion of the highly 

 nitrogenous foods to those which are less so ; and within what 

 limits this proportion may be varied with a view to the quality 

 of the manure, and at the same time consistently with the profit- 



