to the Rearing and Feedivg of Cattle. 
243 
of great practical experience assured him that pigs fatten faster in 
summer, with the same food, than they do in winter. 
But after the facts which I have had the honour of laying 
before you on a former occasion, I trust that further proofs are 
unnecessary. If then you admit that warmth is an equivalent for 
food — for the acknowledgment that animal heat is produced by the 
combustion of food is tantamount to this admission — then you 
must at once see the advantage of protecting a fattening animal 
from the cold. Anything that tends to cool the body of an animal 
is equivalent to a waste of food. All practical farmers allow that 
warmth is favourable to the fattening of cattle, though very few 
act up to the principle implied in this admission. We have seen 
that the saving of food occasioned by the partial protection of a 
shed, in the experiment made by Earl Ducie, amounted to one- 
fourth of the whole food ; and in the second series of experiments 
of Mr. Cliilders,* where motion was at the same time prevented, 
the saving amounted to as much as one-half. Would it be worthy 
of trial whether covering stall-fed cattle with something warm, in 
a manner similar to horses, might not lead to beneficial results? 
In whatever way warmth be given to fattening animals, it is 
certain that nothing will conduce more to the economy and profit- 
able return of the food. It is the protection from cold which 
constitutes one of the advantages of stall-feeding. 
Another great advantage obtained by stall-feeding is the de- 
privation of exercise. We have already stated the true state of 
health of an adult animal is, that the supply of food to the body 
should be equal to, but should not exceed, the waste of matter 
expended in the production of motion. | This is not the state 
desired in a fattening animal. We wish a diseased condition, or 
the state in which the increase of the body is far greater than 
the waste. We can best throw an animal into this condition by 
removing or diminishing the causes of waste. 
Now the primary cause of waste is the oxygen of the air. It 
only acts, however, on the tissues of the body, when they are 
undefended by the antagonist power, vitality. This occurs, as we 
have repeatedly explained, when a vital movement is effected. 
During motion the number of respirations of an animal is in- 
creased ; and accordingly the system receives more oxygen, which 
never again escapes from it without carrying away either part of 
the body or part of the food which has entered the body. Hence, 
by depriving an animal of motion, we diminish the number of its 
respirations, and consequently the cause of waste, and we husband 
the powers of vitality. We have already shown that the vitality 
* Journal, vol. i. p. 407. 
+ This state is exhibited in a healthy adult man, who is found to weigh 
the same at the end of the year as he did at the beginning. 
R 2 
