596 FARM STOCK, BREEDING, AND FEEDING. 
various foods as regards the flesh forming principle, but they 
form no indication of the capabilities of the food to form 
fat, or maintain the necessary functions of respiration or 
motion. 
The column under the head of carbon gives a comparative 
view of the latter capability, an excess of which goes to 
accumulate fat on the external and internal parts of the 
animal, where it is held as a reservoir for the wants of the 
animal. A fat man, or a fat hog, or a fat dormouse, will live 
longer without a renewal of food than a lean animal of either 
species. 
In cold weather, animals require the largest proportion of 
carbonaceous food, to act as fuel to keep them warm. 
The relative value of potatoes and beans cannot be com- 
pared, because their respective value as food arises from 
totally different causes, the one tending to flesh, and the 
other to form fat ; hence, the necessary art of mixing variety of 
food for animals. I do remember, thirty years ago, my father 
at Sutton, in Kent, fattened some pigs on inferior beans that 
would not sell well at Dartford market, the consequence was 
that the meat was so hard that it could not be relished as 
pork, and the pigs were a long while becoming fit for killing ; 
had potatoes, or any starchy grain, as rice, &c., been mixed 
with this food, the result of the fattening would have been 
much more in favour of the owner. 
Thus do we see the propriety of combining the practice 
of farming with that of the scientific principles, as is now being 
done and explained in Morton’s 6 Cyclopaedia of Agriculture/ 
published by Messrs. Blackie, Glasgow. 
I have been led into these remarks on the comparative 
value of vegetable and animal foods, in consequence of 
meeting with a travelling gentlemen, who condemned the 
use of animal food in toto , and all decoction or infusion of ve- 
getable foods, himself drinking only plain water, as his primi- 
tive fathers might have done ; yet this same gentleman would 
feast on the milk, the cheese, and the butter, which would 
build up the calf ; he would feed luxuriantly on the albumen 
which would build up the fowl, its bones, flesh, and feathers. 
In the egg must be contained all these bases, as the phos- 
phate of lime is contained in the milk of the cow, which 
build up the bone frame of the calf. 
In these remarks, I hope to have shown the principles in 
a short and clear way how the animal is built up and sus- 
tained. I would feel myself obliged by correction from any 
correspondent to this journal who may consider me in error, 
and I would remark, with Dr. Playfair, that, “ Blindfolded 
ignorance gropes with hesitating steps through ‘pastures 
