] 90 
ILLUSTRATED STOCK DOCTOR. 
in only small quantities, tends to the creation of unnatural heat and fever. 
Food ground, and fed moist with considerable hay, obviates this tendency 
somewhat, and the more the stomach is distended with fodder the less 
the tendency to fever. 
Natural per cent, of Water in Pood. 
The proportion of water to flesh-forming and fat-forming substance in 
natural food, (herbage), will range from seventy to eighty per cent. 
The proportion of water necessary with dry feed may be stated at about 
sixt} per cent, in Winter, and more in Summer, varying with the heat 
and humidity of the atmosphere. Upon succulent herbage in Summer 
the animal tissues will contain more fluid than in Winter, on dry food ; 
hence the necessity and economy in Winter-feeding to keep the animals 
fully supplied with water, so that certain portions of their systems will 
not be obliged to abstract the natural fluids from other parts of the body. 
Upon turning cattle to pasture in Spring they often seem to fatten sud- 
denly. Much of this is due to increased assimilation of water in the 
tissues. The advantage of pasturage in Summer is that it tends to ameli- 
orate the condition of the animal by reducing the feverish state of the 
system, acquired during the Winter feeding on dry food. Ilencc tho 
value of roots, where easily and cheaply raised — turnips in England; 
turnips, carrots, and beets, in tho Eastern States ; and beets and carrots 
in the West. In the West, roots are not given so much for their fattening 
quality ; but when these arc fed at the rate of one quarter bushel or less 
per day, they act as a digestive element to the other food, causing more 
perfect assimilation. When these are not to be had, bran should consti- 
tute a portion of the food given. 
Animal Waste. 
It is generally considered as true that about two-thirds of tho food 
consumed goes to supply the animal heat and waste. All grass-feeding 
animals that have to sustain themselves for long periods in the wild state, 
on scanty food, accumulate large masses of fat in tho Summer months. 
During the Winter this is gradually dissipated (consumed) in the effort 
to keep up the animal heat, and by Spring the animals are thin and weak. 
Precisely the same thing occurs in the ordinary way of wintering stock on 
hay out-of-doors. I hey become thin, often emaciated, and sometimes 
die, in the effort of the owner to see upon how little food he can bring 
them through alive. Not only all the food given has been consumed, 
burned up, in the effort to keep warm, but also all the fat, where accumu- 
lated in masses about the body. Not only this ; before the anim al Anally 
