CooMng Food for Cattle. 
453 
cially a ruminant animal, cooked food, for tlius tliey miglit to a 
considerable extent supersede mastication ; if so, they would super- 
sede insalivation, and tlius interfere with one of the chief pro- 
cesses of nature. The action of the saliva was first to convert 
the amylaceous parts of the food (or starch) into sugar or gummy 
matter. A fiu-ther provision was made in the ruminant animal 
for stirring up, if he might so express it, the food ; and a che- 
mical change took place in its character before it passed . into the 
true digestive stomach. There was a re-mastication and a re-insali- 
vation; and, inasmuch as the secretions coming from the rumen 
were very analogous to those with which the food were mixed in 
the mouth, it not only remained mixed with saliva a much longer 
time, but was mixed with a much greater quantity of that or a like 
substance. If, then, by the use of cooked food they dispensed with 
jiart of the operations of nature, and sent the food quicker into the 
intestinal canal, they would dispense with the process of re-mastica- 
tion and re-insalivation ; and he could easily understand why, 
although a large increase might take place in bulk, the quality of 
the animal might become bad. The digestive process depends 
materially uj^on the condition of the food : it is even possible, by 
giving cooked food, or food which was physically in the same con- 
dition with regard to fineness and moisture, to render animals 
lion ruminative which are naturally ruminative ; that is to say, we 
may give them food that would be retained for a very short space 
of time in the rumen, pass quickly into the true digestive stomach, 
and become subject to the action of digestion without first under- 
going re-mastication. We should thus interfere at once with the 
law of nature ; if we cook food at all, we ought not, before cooking, 
to reduce it too fine. If the straw be cut into lengths of from four 
to six inches, a cooking process may be set up so as to convert the 
amylaceous parts into sugar, without interfering with the functions 
of the rumen ; but such food would be re-masticated. He would 
advise that if food is pulped and mixed it should not lie too long to 
imdergo the process of fermentation, but be given pretty soon after 
it is mixed. Straw might, doubtless, be converted into palatable 
food, and animals induced to eat a larger quantity of inferior pro- 
-vender cut into chaff, by simply throwing over it a small quantity 
of oilcake dissolved in water. This was a common practice among 
farmers in Lincolnshire in feeding their horses, especially during 
the winter months. Upon the whole, he was certainly not in favour 
of the so-called system of cooking food, either for the preservation 
•of the health of the animal, or for the promotion of the process of 
digestion, and was inclined to think that, by the physical alterations 
they might make in character and condition by the cutting straw, 
pulping roots, and mixing a solution of oilcake with them, they 
'would gain their point at a lower expenditure, and with much more 
^advantage to the animal economy. 
