Fattening Jinimals. 517 
work, as it were, of a plant are formed, the organic bodies (oxygen, 
nitrogen, hydrogen and carbon,) can not be transformed and or- 
ganized into vegetable tissues. But with a full supply of the 
mineral matters required for the growth of plants, and in a solu- 
ble condition in the soil, we can grow the largest of our cultivated 
crops, without the aid of guano or stable manure, (reputed so val- 
uable from their organic constituents,) as is fully proved by the 
fertility of subsoils thrown from ditches, cellars, wells, and the 
cuttings of rail-roads; and also from the heavy crops of corn, 
grain, hay, &c., raised upon newly cleaned hurnt land, and upon 
the ocean prairies of the west. 
Said our friend Tucker, of the Cultivator, " Let it be remem- 
bered, that every plant requires its specific food; and that each 
successive crop, or generation of the same kind of plant, takes 
something from the soil. Hence it necessarily follows, that this 
loss must be supplied, or exhaustion will follow, and as the food 
required for the plant is lessened, it is evident that the amount of 
produce will be lessened in a corresponding ratio." 
Here we have a whole volume of instruction embodied in one 
single sentence; and when we, practical farmers, shall have truly 
learned what this something is, " that each successive crop, or 
generation of the same kind of plant takes from the soil," and 
the most economical way of restoring this something to the ex- 
hausted soil, we shall have accomplished one great and important 
step in the science of farming. Warner, JY. H., Aug., 1848. 
Fattening Animals. — A memoir was read to the Academy of 
Sciences, at Paris, by M. M. Dumas, Boussingault, and Payan, 
" Of Researches on the fattening of animals, and on the forma- 
tion of milk." These philosophers announce their belief that 
fatty matters are formed in plants alone; that they thence pass, 
ready formed, into the bodies of herbiviri, entering the chyle duct 
by the lactcals, and so passing into the blood; that the first degree 
of oxidation forms stearine or oleacacid; a further degree produces 
the margaric acid which characterizes fat; a still further degree 
the volatile fatty acids — in opposition to Liebig, who traces the 
origin of fat to the sugar or starch of the food. In confirmation 
of their views, they show that hay contains more per cent, of 
oleaginous matter than is produced in the butter from a cow 
fed on this hay; and that cows fed on potatoes, or other roots poor 
in fat, produce much less butter. They advance an influence, 
which bears much on rural economy, that a cow eliminates twice 
as much fat from a given quantity of food as does an ox; and 
hence the commerce of milk and butter deserves a high degree of 
attention. Some relative experiments on fattening pigs bear out 
the same general principles, — Pol. Review. 
