Agricultural Chemistri/. — Pig Feeding. 



Alb 



increase of this entire pen is more than 2 lbs. per head per day. 

 It would appear that a small proportion of Bran, with otherwise 

 highly nutritive food, is by no means unfavourable in the fattening 

 food of the pig. The results of the next 4 pens, however, will 

 show, that the limit of the usefulness of Bran as a fattening food 

 is very soon reached : and that with 2 or 3 lbs. per pig per day of 

 Beans and Lentils, or of Indian com, or even of both, an unlimited 

 supply of Bran in addition, is insufficient to enable the animals 

 to do much more than keep up a good store condition. 



In Pens 9, 10, 11, and 12, Bran was given as the unlimited or 

 complementary food : in the three former with the other foods in 

 limited quantity ; in Pen 12, with all the foods ad libitum. 



In Pen 9 the limited food during che first fortnight was 2 lbs. 

 of Beans and Lentils per pig per day, with Bran ad libitum. 

 Upon this diet No. 1 Pig only increased 7 lbs., No. 2, 2 lbs., 

 and No. 3 nothing at all, during the fourteen days. In this 

 food, with a limited supply of Beans and Lentils, and Bran ad 

 libitum, which has yielded such a bad result, there was a more 

 liberal supply of nitrogenous constituents than in many of the 

 previous pens ; and it will be seen further on that it was the 

 7W;2-nitrogenous matters that were wanting in this diet. We shall 

 find, indeed, that beyond a somewhat narrow limit which is 

 attained with almost any of our current fatting foods, any defect is 

 much miore likelv to be connected with a deficiency of the important 

 72072-nitrogenous constituents than of the nitrogenous ones. This 

 remark of course refers only to the quality of food as such, that 

 is as a source of the support and increase of the animal, and not 

 to its value as a means of Manure, which, in its turn, depends 

 almost entirely upon the amount of nitrogen which the food 

 contains. With, such plain indications as the results of this 

 pen afforded during the first fortnightly period, it was deter- 

 mined to increase from that time the dailv allowance of beans 

 and lentils from 2 lbs. to 3 lbs. Notwithstandino; this increase 

 in the allowance of the food, which, when given alone and in 

 large quantity in Pen 1, yielded so large an increase, the gain in 

 this pen continued to be scarcely more than one-third as much 

 as the average in many of the pens. Two of the pigs indeed 

 in this pen, ?vos. 1 and 3, gave a somewhat regular though but 

 small increase ; but No. 2 gained only 6 lbs. during the entire 

 period of 8 weeks. Almost from the commencement of the expe- 

 riment this No. 2 pig became unwell, being as it were paralyzed 

 and deprived of the use of its limbs ; but as he had progressed 

 quite as well as the average during the period preliminary to the 

 exact experiment, it was supposed that this was only the natural 

 effect of the defective diet, and hence it was decided not to alter 

 the food, but to let him take his course, in order to obtain the 



