Agricultural Chemistry. — Fig Feeding. 



495 



Looking first to Table XIV. (which refers to Series I.), it is 

 seen, by the heading, that Division I. gives the quantity, in lbs. 

 and tenths, of the gross or fresh food consumed iceeMg hy every 

 100 lbs. live-weight of animal in each pen, during each of the 

 four successive periods, and the total period of the experiment. 

 A glance at the figures in this division from left to right will 

 show, that, with scarcely an exception, there is a very consider- 

 able decrease of consumption to 100 lbs. live weight, as the ex- 

 periment progresses. In several cases there is scarcely half as 

 much food consumed to a given weight of animal in the fourth 

 period as in the first ; and, indeed, in all where the progress is 

 known to have been good, this decrease in consumption, from 

 the first period to the fourth, amounts to about one-third or more. 

 On the other hand, it is as clearly seen, that in those cases in 

 which the pigs fattened but very slowly, the decrease in the con- 

 sumption of food to a given weight of animal, as the experiment 

 proceeded, is very inconsiderable. 



Looking at the figures a little more in detail, we observe too, 

 that there is a perceptibly greater decrease in consumption to a 

 given weight of animal, where the comparatively Tzozz-nitrogenous 

 Indian corn predominated, than where the more highly nitro- 

 genous foods were more freely given. 



If we now^ turn to Divison II. of the Table — which shows the 

 comparative productiveness of a given weight of food in gross 

 increase, as the experiment progressed — we see no such obvious 

 general gradation in this, as the animal matured, as has been 

 observed in the rate of the consumption of food ; though there 

 is perhaps, upon the whole, more of a tendency to decrease than 

 to increase in this rate of productiveness in gross increase, as the 

 experiment proceeded. Comparing, however, the results of 

 pens 1 to 4 inclusive, where the nitrogenous food more predomi- 

 nated, with those of pens 5 to 8, where the Indian meal was 

 given in larger quantity, there is certainly, with the more highly 

 nitrogenous diets, more of the tendency to decrease, in the pro- 

 portion of gain in live weight to food consumed, than with the 

 more ??o?z-nitrogenous ones. 



Turning to Table XV., which gives the same particulars for 

 the Second Series, w^e see, that, notwithstanding during the course 

 of the experiment several of the pigs in this Series were un- 

 healthy, and some died, yet the same general facts are here 

 brought out as in Series I. Thus, taking first Division I. 

 (Table XV.), which shows the rate of consumption as the animals 

 fattened, we find (owing, doubtless, to the generally better and 

 more uniform balance of the constituents of the food throuo;-hout 

 this Series than in Series I.), that the decrease in the consumption 

 of food to 100 lbs, live weight of animal, is even more general in 



