546 Kidd V, Royal Agricultural Society of England. 
Q. Would turuips and mangold wurzel, when coming in contact with drier 
food, such as cho2)ped clover or straw, have a greater tendency to fermen- 
tation ? — A. No, they would not have a greater tendency. I do not think 
they would have so great a tendency, because they are mingled with a certain 
quantity of what farmers know as dry food. 
Q. But if you give wet moist food instead of dry, would not the tendency 
he to create a more rapid action ? — ^4. Certainly. 
Q. Then, let us understand, if an animal has been having dry food, such as 
chopped clover or chopped straw, and then you give it food that is moist, and 
you find afterwards that that animal had an attack of tympanitis, would you 
account for it chemically by the action of the dry food and the moist food 
setting up a fermentation which resulted in tympanitis ? — A. 1 should chemi- 
cally account for it in the moist food setting up an action first, and then that 
action extending to the dry food. 
Q. You have answered my question now. That is what I meant, at any 
rate, whether it is worth anything or not. — A. I thought you were going into 
vital laws and chemical laws, which were out of my beat. Your question was 
one I could not understand. 
Q. Is Professor Gelle of Toulouse, who is quoted by Mr. Youatt in his work 
on cattle, looked upon as an authority ? — A. He was. But he has been dead 
twenty years. 
Q. But, as in the case of lawyers, I suppose old law is not worse than new 
law ? — A. Just so. His is old physiology. 
Q. Do you agree with this : "It is comparatively rare " (that is the hoven), 
" when an animal is out at pasture during that part of the year, browsing at 
leisure, but it is most prevalent where an artificial mode of feeding prevails"? 
— A. I agree with it in part. That is an observation made by Spooner. 
Q. It is not an observation by Spooner, it is a note in Spooner's Edition of 
' White,' taken from Youatt — Youatt quoting it approvingly, from Prol'ossor 
Gelle ? — A. Quite so. It is like law, you know, partly true, and partly 
untrue. Everybody knows perfectly well that if you have an animal out at 
grass the whole summer through, it very rarely indeed has tympanitis; 
everybody also knows iierfectly well that if an animal while at grass is shifted 
from one piece of jjastu re-ground to another where there is a very luxurious 
herbage, which is tempting to the animal's appetite, and especially if also the 
weather is wet, it is likely to become tympanitic. 
Q. Does not it also come to this, that animals in their wild or natural state 
when out at pasture are less likely to become subject to tympanitis than stall- 
fed animals ? — A. Oh, unquestionably, animals in a state of nature are less 
likely. 
Q. I think we had an illustration of that yesterday, when we heard that the 
animals on being turned out loose into the fold-yard after being attacked at 
one of the farms, soon got better? — A. Yes, but I would not call those 
animals in a state of nature, 1 should call wild animals animals in a state of 
nature. We place the animals as much in a natural condition as we can. 
Q. Animals unartificially fed are not so liable to tympanitjis as animals 
that are subjected to a course of artificial feeding ? — A. No. 
Q. 1 think in your notes upon the state of those animals at that time you 
did not make any of those suggestions as to the cake-feeding, of course ? — A. Yes. 
Q. Will you just read the note you have got there? — A. "The animal 
from which the above-named parts were removed was supposed to have died 
from eating newly purchased oil-cake. iSeveral other cattle fed with the 
same showed symptoms of illness. The lesions described are not such as 
would be produced by an irritant poison." The note stops there, but, ol 
course, it meant to say that the cake itself did not contain an irritant 
poison. 
