450 Abstract Report of Agricultural Discussions. 
rise to putrefaction instead of lactic acid fermentation. For tlie 
same reason it won't do to mix much cake mucilage with other food, 
and to let it be a long time. If soon consumed after the addition of 
the cake jelly, no harm is done ; but if left too long after the 
addition, incipient putrefaction and mould (both of which are 
highly injurious to the preparation of cattle food) become percep- 
tible in the mess. The tendency to putrefy increases with the 
amount of nitrogenous matter in the food. When malt-combs are 
soaked in water, and then mixed witli chaff, lactic acid is readily 
foiTued, if there is sufficient water present, and the temperatui'e 
sufficiently high. Sugar in the presence of much water and a suffi- 
cient quantity of albuminous matter becomes changed into lactic acid, 
an acid which has the same percentage composition as milk-sugar 
itself. Too much or too little albuminous matter is alike unfavour- 
able to the production of lactic acid." He (Mr. Frere) was rather 
inclined to attribute the more successful feeding of the animal that 
would not eat the highly nitrogenous warm mess, but was fed on 
the mixture of malt-combs and straw-chaff moistened with watei', 
to the generation in some degree of lactic acid by that mixtiire ; 
whereas it would seem, from Professor Voelcker's note, that when 
the more nitrogenous mixture of boiled bean-meal was poured over the 
straw, putrefactive fermentation might have begim. The food which 
he was now giving to his nine beasts was lib. of malt-combs apiece, 
'•) lbs. of linseed cake, 2 lbs. of cotton cake, o lbs. of bean-meal, and 
2 lbs. of charob or locust beans, with 28 lbs. of mangold and 8 lbs. of 
straw ; and he found that the 9 lbs. of malt-combs took up two gallons 
of water, and that four gallons of water were taken up by the straw. 
Therefore the weight of the eight gallons of water employed was 
greater than that of the straw and malt-combs with which it was 
mixed. His impression was that there were other means of pre- 
l^aring food, that were more easily available for the farmer, and 
more economical, than the use of fuel and steam; that there was an 
analogy between the fermentation that took place in the first act of 
germination, and the fermentation which it Avas desirable to pro- 
duce in this mixed food for the stock, and that malt-combs were a 
very likely agent to produce that fermentation in the way desired. 
The Discussion. 
]\Ir. Lawes said that the experiments at the Duke of Bedford's 
were not intended to be comjiarative as between cooked food and 
dry food. Their object was simply to find out the amount and 
composition of the dung of box-fed beasts, so as to ascertain more 
particularly the loss in that valuable element ammonia. The late 
Duke placed the whole of his establishment at his (IMr. Lawes's) 
disposal; the experiments made were conducted with extreme care, 
and the weights of the animals, as far as they went, were extremely 
correct, lie should be sorry, however, if the results of those 
experiments were taken as a standard in reference to the cooking 
of food as against the common feeding of animals with dry food ; 
