Agricultural Chemistry. — Pig Feeding. 527 



we "have formed from the experiments as a whole. Thus, in Pen 

 1 of Series II., with Beans and Lentils as the only food — which 

 contained a larger proportion of the nitrogenous constituents 

 than any of the other dietaries of the Series — we have little 

 more than two-thirds as much of non-nitrogenous substance, and 

 only four-fifths as much total dry organic matter consumed as 

 the average of the Series. In this pen, however, a larger amount 

 of total dry organic substance, was consumed to produce a given 

 amount of gross increase, than in many of the pens in the Series 

 where the proportion it contained of nitrogenous substance was 

 very much less. And, when we further consider, that with an 

 excessive proportion of nitrogenous substance in the food of the 

 fattening pig, we have found there was more of a tendency to 

 grow in frame and flesh than in other cases — and again, that the 

 larger the proportion of flesh in the increase, the less will be the 

 proportion in it of real dry substance — it will be seen, that if 

 there were a smaller amount of food consumed, there would also, 

 at the same time, be a smaller amount of increase produced by 

 it — especially of that formed from the non-nitrogenous con- 

 stituents of the food, and which would contain the largest pro- 

 portion of real dry substance. Hence there would be, though a 

 small amount of non-nitrogenous constituents consumed, a larger 

 proportion of them available for the respiratory process. This 

 apparent exception, is not then necessarily adverse to the view, 

 that the respiratory process was the gauge of consumption. 



In Series III. again, where we have, in Pens 1 and 2, a com- 

 paratively small amount of non-nitrogenous matter consumed, the 

 food consisted, in a large proportion, of the highly nitrogenous 

 Cod-fish ; and in both of these cases, we had not only a very good 

 proportion of increase to food consumed, but the pigs in these 

 pens were very fat and well ripened ; and hence, a large proportion 

 of their increase would be real dry substance. It is then, again 

 when the proportion of nitrogenous constituents in the food was 

 large, that a small amount both of non-nitrogenous substance and 

 of gross dry organic matter, seemed to have sufficed for the wants of 

 the animal. This result is in itself interesting ; and it may perhaps 

 point to a comparatively greater efficiency in the already animalized 

 protein compounds supplied in the Cod-fish, than in those derived, 

 as in the other cases, from the purely vegetable diets. Whether or 

 not there may be any truth in such an explanation of the great 

 efficiency of this highly nitrogenous food, we presume that this 

 result with the unusual, or at least only very locally adopted 

 food, oijish, can scarcely be taken as contradicting the indica- 

 tions of the natural requirements of the fattening pig, such as we 

 have found them to be so consistently brought out, in so large 

 a series of experiments, in which he was fed upon his more 

 usual and appropriate food. 



