SOME OF THE ANIMALS FED AND SLAUGrHTEEED AS HUMAN FOOD. 497 
were determined. It is one of the objects of the present Paper to treat of the 
summaries of the results so obtained ; and the details will be given for reference in the 
Appendix. 
To determine the ultimate composition, and in a sense the proximate composition 
also, of Oxen, Sheep, and Pigs, and to acquire the data in such manner that they 
might serve to estimate the probable composition of their increase whilst fattening, was 
a labour obviously too great to be undertaken with a large number of such animals. 
A few individuals only, of each of the above descriptions of animal, but in ditferent con- 
ditions of maturity, were therefore selected for the purpose. It is to the methods, and 
to the results, of the analysis of the animals so selected, and to the application of the data 
thus arrived at, that we shall have chiefly to address ourselves on the present occasion. 
Ten animals were submitted to analysis. Those taken were— 
1. A Fat Calf; of the Durham breed ; 9 or 10 weeks old ; taken from the dam feeding 
upon grass; killed September 12, 1849. 
2. A Half-fat Ox, Aberdeen breed; about 4 years old; had been fed on fattening 
food, but had gro^vn rather than fattened ; killed November 14, 1849. 
3. A moderately Fat Ox; — Aberdeen breed; about 4 years old; fed on fattening food; 
kiUed October 30, 1849. 
4. A Fat Lamb ; — Hampshire Down; about 6 months old ; killed August 17, 1849. 
5. A Store* Sheep;— Hampshii’e Down; about a year old; killed February 28, 1850. 
6. A Half-fat old Sheep; — Hampshire Down Ewe; 3^ years old; killed May 3, 1849. 
7. A Fat Sheep ;—FIampshire Down; IJ year old; killed May 7, 1849. 
8. A very Fat Sheep; — Hampshire Down; If year old; killed December 13, 1848. 
9. A Store* Pig; killed May 12, 1850. 
10. A Fat Pig; same litter as last; fed on fattening food for 10 weeks; killed Julv 18 
1850. 
The sDll remaining points of the mam inquby are : — first, as to the composition of the 
solid and liquid excreta, in regard to which we have collected much experimental data, 
which must form the subject of a separate Report: — and, secondly, as to the proportion 
of the food-constituents expended or lost by the respiratory and other processes. The 
latter amount is obHously the complementary quantity making up the constituents 
consumed, those assimilated being estimated, and those voided in the solid and liquid 
form determined experimentally, and the sum deducted from the whole amount of the 
solid and liquid ingesta. 
After this brief outline of the scope of the main inquiry, of which the subject of the 
present Paper constitutes but a branch, it will be sufiiciently understood, that it was 
chiefly with a view to the agricultural bearings of the results, and to their connexion 
with collateral investigations, that the researches now to be recorded were planned and 
executed. So enormous, indeed, has been the labour necessarily expended in so deter- 
mining the ultimate composition of several animals as to serve the special purposes pro- 
The term ‘ store ’ is applied to animals not yet put upon fattening food. 
