AN ESSAY ON FAT AND MUSCLE. 
677 
to a straw-yard, into which he may be occasionally turned during 
the mild dry days in the winter. We are aware of the trouble to 
be apprehended from grazing animals of this description during the 
second summer, but we know the plan is commonly practised in 
localities where the enclosures are conveniently small without 
any difficulty or danger. 
We stated, at the commencement of this essay, that the living 
organism is incapable of producing an elementary body out of 
substances which do not contain it; a statement, in common par- 
lance, meaning “ that a horse which gets kicks instead of oats is 
not likely to maintain a working condition.” In the rearing of 
young animals of all descriptions, it must be evident that sub- 
stances rich in nitrogen are particularly required for the growth of 
the various parts of the body, since there is no part of an organ 
that contains less than 17 per cent. For the growth of bone, 
muscle, blood, membranes, skin, horn, hair, and cellular tissue, a 
certain amount of this substance is absolutely necessary. We 
have shewn that they do not obtain much, if any, of this substance 
from the air ; it must, therefore, necessarily be supplied in the 
food. In the rearing of horses, where the object is to produce a 
great development of muscle, this is particularly required : hence 
it is the practice of intelligent breeders to supply the young stock 
with a proper allowance of oats, peas, beans, and shelter, during 
the winter; and it is from the want of those requisites that so 
many thousands of horses are yearly rendered worthless. The 
young animal is placed on our globe tolerably perfect from the 
hands of the Creator, but its degeneracy is frequently owing to the 
treatment pursued in the rearing. Only compare a yearling colt 
that has been well housed and well fed during the winter with one 
that has been turned out, and fed chiefly with hay, straw, and tur- 
nips — the food usually allowed by farmers to this kind of stock in 
the winter ; and although equally fine and clean in their respective 
points when separated in the autumn, yet they bear no kind of 
comparison, either in size or beauty, in the spring. Again ; pursue 
the same plan the following winter, and you fix the shape for life — 
the one a handsome, strong, muscular animal ; the other a coarse 
and plain one. It is by proper feeding, and a proper degree of 
shelter given to the young stock, during the first three winters, 
that some horses are got to such perfection as we sometimes see, 
having clean limbs, large powerful muscles, and good action ; for 
had those colts been kept hard, and exposed to the weather, they 
would never have attracted any attention. 
In the rearing of store cattle, the same care is not required as 
we have recommended for breeding ones — the object of the feeder 
in this instance being to obtain as much profit as he can from the 
