Jijlv If THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 
extended over 227 days, and consisted of 44 lb. of 
mangolds, 2J lb. of oil cake, the same quantity of 
bran, 5£ lb. of bay, and 10 lb. of chaffed straw. In 
summer, cut clover and 3J lb. of bran. As in Ger- 
man cow sheds, the supply of salt and water was 
unlimited. 
Pending the 365 days, the average total yield of 
milk per Durham was 657 gallons, per Dutch 778. 
In other words, the proportion was 110 to 118. Re- 
specting the composition of the milk, one litre (If 
pint) of that of the Durham contained 40 grammes 
(1J oz.) of fatty matter, 36 gr. of caseine, and 51 
gr. of sugar, whilst the proportions of these matters 
in the same quantity of the milk of the Dutch 
cows was 33, 34 and 48 grammes respectively. Con- 
clusion : when the object is to sell the milk fresh, 
the Dutch cow is incontestably to be preferred — 
that which practice confirms. The difference may 
not be so pecuniarily great when the plan spreads 
of purchasing milk by analysis. 
The Durham yields a higher quality and the 
Dutch a superior quantity of milk. Now the differ- 
ence would be only apparent, when in both cases 
the milk was to be converted into butter and cheese. 
Estimating, according to the relative analytical 
richness of the milks of both races, and keeping in 
mind the superior quantity of milk produced by the 
Dutch cow, the latter will be found in the course 
of the twelvemonth to be in round (numbers absol- 
utely the samo as the Durham. In the butter and 
checso point of view, the relative richness of the 
milk should occupy less attention than those other 
factors which affect the value of stock-precocity and 
aptitude for fattening. 
Some confusion apparently exists respecting the 
rule of water in nutrition. The animal tissues could 
not fulfil their functions were they not imbibed with 
a certain quantity of water, which is the necessary 
dissolvent as well as vehicle of all the matters 
which penetrate into the economy. Water thus 
permits the absorption of the aliments and prepares 
them for assimilation. M. Boussingault who was 
amongst the earliest to point out that weighing an 
animal before and after a certain dietary was the 
test to determine the nutritive value of a forage, 
&c, by revealing if the animal throve or fell away, 
developed muscle or fat, &c. It is at the same 
time not a little strange, that in the researches of 
Liebig, Boussingault, Payen, Dumas, &c, on fatten- 
ing, they have never taken into account the water 
drunk by animals. 
In all Boussingault's writings there is not a single 
trace of any direct experiment where the connec- 
tion between the water absorbed and the process of 
fattening is dealt with. 
The body of an adult man consists of GO to 70 
per cent of water. By secretion, respiration and 
cutaneous transpiration— varying of course following 
age, exercise, temperature, humidity of the air, &c. — 
a man loses in twenty-four hours from 5J to 6jj lb. 
of water. The loss by the lungs is more uniform, 
about 15 onncos daily. Now in man, as in animals, 
this loss must bo repaired, and is so not directly 
by water, but by the food forming during the com- 
bustion of the aliments in the animal economy, 
water, as well as carbonic acid and urea. Dr. Cal- 
lamand, one of tho best authorities on tlio role of 
water in animal life, concludes it is only the medium 
for the acts of nutrition, that water promotes nei- 
ther obesity nor leanness, and does not modify the 
equilibrium of the functions. 
Complaints still continue of tho prevalence of 
abortion among cows, even where the sheds fulfil 
all sanitary conditions. In such cases the cause must 
be sought for in the food and the quantity given. The 
total mean capacity of the stomachsof a cow is 55 gals.; 
and by the way, the volume of the stomach of a horse 
is IS to 15 quarts ; of a pig, 6 to 7 ; a dog, 2 to 8 (marts, 
and n rabbit, * to i of a pint. Food, if given too 
warm, will produce abortion in cows by irritating 
the uterus; eo will frozen roots, or fodder, beet leaves, 
cabbage, rape ,<cc., covi red with rime or hoar-frost. 
Cold drink is also a promoting cause ; trough-water 
should not have a lower temperature than 60 degrees 
l-'alir. An excesn of dialled ntraw imbibed with water 
in rations can also act injuriously by producing 
pressure against the matrix, especially if the animal 
he on the right side— that which often kills the 
fcetus. The same remark applies to other swellina 
rations. 
When rape cake contains mustard feeds, and is 
blended wUh water, it engenders a pungent essence 
which acts detrimentally on the abdominal organs 
Pure rape cake should not be given in larger morsels 
than the size of a pea. Of course ergoted fodder 
will be eschewed, ergot being a specific for provoking 
abortion ; happily, the parasite generally selects rye 
for its home. But ergot is also found on many 
weeds peculiar to meadows, and notoriously on fox- 
glove. As many as 110 ergots have been counted 
on that dangerous pest. Ergot is more common on 
the first cut of a meadow, than in aftermaths. Maize 
is liable to charbon, or smut-rust, another parasite 
nearly as daugerous for cows in c;ilf as ergot. The 
fungus which frequently white-spots the under 
part of the leaf of tares and peas makes the haulm 
often a dangerous fodder. 
One ton of hay is estimated to produce two tous 
of farmyard manure. A French proverb says, " The 
meadow is the mother of the fields." If the hay 
be inferior by the predominance of rushes, weeds 
&c, sc will be the manure, and the soil receiving 
the latter must suffer in its fertility. Now the soil 
is not so insensible as many cursory observers might 
be inclined to conclude, to the maintenance of the 
conditions of its richness, though scientists are still 
somewhat at sea, respecting the nature of these con- 
ditions. Unlike the raw material in other industries, 
we do not know "all about the soil." It presents 
perplexities which baffle science. We are aware at 
present, what plants require, thanks to the analysis 
of their ashes. Some dozen of simple bodies— potash, 
soda, lime, iron &c. borrowed from the soil and oxygen, 
carbon and perhaps nitrogen taken from the atmosphere 
are the building materials of plants. And we can 
estimate in advance like a contractor how much of 
each material a crop will demand from the soil and 
the air. 
The composition of the atmosphere is the same in 
every part of the world. But soils vary in compos- 
ition; we know their ingredients, but are not at all 
fixed as to the processes by which the plant draws 
up its sustenance from the soil. For example, here 
are two fields equally well cultivated ; they are sown 
with the same seed, situated alike as to climate and 
position; the ploughings, harrowings, and other 
mechanical operations, have been carefully made, 
aud at suitable epochs. Yet when harvest arrives, 
one field will yield double the produce of the other. 
Why this groat difference ? Due to inequality in the 
natural richness of the soils? No; for when both 
soils aro analysed they will reveal not only the 
presence in sufficient quantity of phosphoric acid, 
lime, potash &c, but absolutely in like proportions'. 
Plants resemble animals in their manner— chemic- 
ally and physically— of grouping the simple bodies, 
which, in their assemblage, form the elements of 
their mutual nutrition. But they differ in their mode 
of obtaining their food, that is of seizing it. An 
animal is endowed with locomotion, can go in search 
of what will supply its hunger-wants. A plant on 
tho other hand is fixed and must be content in the 
matter of food-getting with what its rootlets can 
octopus-like grasp and draw up. The comparison 
will explain the dissimilarity in the fertility of the 
two fields, containing equal quantities of phosphorus, 
lime, nitrogen, &c. Take the latter raw material, it 
is indispensable for the development of all living 
beings. The animal can only assimilate the nitrogen 
which it requries by specially grouping with the other 
raw materials— carbon, oxygen, and hydrogen— so as to 
pro, luce those nitrogenous compounds, albumen, 
flbrine aud caseine, which are tho bases of 1 
flesh, and milk. But if an animal was supplied with 
nitrogen in the form of gelatine for iustancc, and 
in the abseuce of other elements it would succumb 
from hunger. 
