538 Agricultural Chemistry. — Pig Feeding. 



frequently found to give a very rapid increase. But pork so 

 fed, is found to sink rapidly in the salting process, and to waste 

 considerably when boiled. And, although the first batch of 

 pigs so fed may fetch a good price, their character is at once 

 detected, and the market closed against a second sale. On the 

 other hand, when pigs are fattened upon the highly nitrogenized 

 Leguminous seeds — peas being, however, if not an exception, at 

 any rate much less objectionable than some others — the lean is 

 said to be very hard, and the fat also to waste in cooking. And 

 again, when fish, flesh, and some strong flavoured oleaginous 

 matters are given, the pork is found to be rank in flavour, or 

 otherwise disagreeably tainted. Common practice, indeed, has 

 settled, that the Cereal grains with their low per centage of 

 nitrogenous compounds, constitute in the long run the staple 

 food of the fattening pig ; and the whole of the results of the 

 experiments detailed in this paper bear testimony in favour of 

 the correctness of this decision. Considering, however, not 

 only the price at which a given weight of Leguminous seeds can 

 be purchased, compared with that of the Cereal grains, but also 

 the increased value of the manure from the former, and their 

 probably greater tendency to give increase in frame and flesh 

 — it is obviously the interest of the farmer, to use the highly 

 nitrogenous Leguminous seeds, and perhaps even refuse flesh 

 and other such matters, if at command, during the earlier and 

 more growing stages. But it is certain, that if a constant good 

 market for the pork is to be secured, these must greatly dimi- 

 nish, or cease entirely, and the supply of barley-meal, or other 

 Cereal grain, be substituted for them as the period of fattening 

 proceeds. 



But not only do the principles involved in these suggestions, 

 apply to the fattening of pigs, but, mutatis mutandis, they are 

 applicable also to the fattening of other animals for the butcher ; 

 though — since in the case of fattening oxen and sheep, the Legu- 

 minous seeds, or other highly nitrogenous foods, constitute but 

 a small proportion of the total food consumed — any deleterious 

 influence which an excess of them might have upon the quality 

 of the flesh, is less likely to occur. Indeed, all our feeding 

 results consistently show, that the theory which assigns to the 

 different substances used as fattening foods, a value in propor- 

 tion to their per centage of nitrogenous compounds, is fallacious. 

 It is probably a consideration of the obviously vast importance 

 of the functions exercised by the nitrogenous structures and 

 fluids of the animal body, which has given rise, in the scientific 

 mind, to the notion of the relatively higher value of foods 

 according to their richness in nitrogenous constituents. The 

 economical or commercial estimate, is, however, founded upon 



