ABSURD METHOD OF FEEDING CATTLE IN WINTER. 355 
tracted, in order to press the air from the emphysematous bladders 
on the surface of the lungs, and also of the prolonged act of ex¬ 
piration. The case is a very instructive one, and I think you 
will deem it worth preserving'. 
OX THE ABSURD METHOD OF FEEDING CATTLE 
IN WINTER. 
Mr. Harrison, F.S., Lancaster. 
Food being; the natural stimulus to the stomachs of all ani- 
mals, and when given in proper quantities, and of a sufficiently 
nutritive quality, the digestive pow’ers performing their functions 
with energy, all the secretions of the body are natural and regu¬ 
lar; the skin feels loose, soft, and oily; and the animal is in as 
perfect a state of health as his domesticated life will admit of: 
but if this is reversed, by forcing cattle to live upon food bad 
in its owm nature, and consequently of an indigestible quality, 
the stomachs become deranged and disordered in their opera¬ 
tions ; the various secretions become altered, and the liver, lungs, 
heart, brain, kidneys, uterus, and, in fact, every part of the body 
is sympathetically disordered; and, finally, one or more of these 
particular organs becomes diseased. 
It being, then, admitted that, for the due and healthy perform¬ 
ance of the organic functions, food of a peculiar kind is essential, 
need we be astonished at anv deviations from health, or chronic 
and latent diseased states of the digestive organs, wffiich only 
await some exciting cause in order to be developed wdth all their 
concomitant symptoms, particularly when we consider the cruel 
and preposterous method of foddering cattle during the winter, 
in this and too many other neigbourhoods, exposed, as they ne¬ 
cessarily must be, to a variable temperature upon the fells, or low, 
mossy, and marshy lands with which this county abounds, and 
dragging over the long and w^eary wdnter months wdth a scanty 
supply of their natural food, barely sufficient for the support of 
life, or, what is still w orse, compelled to allay the craving of their 
appetites wdth straw’ (and that frequently bad, and supplied with 
a sparing hand) or bad hay, which cannot contain much nutri¬ 
ment, and which is highly injurious to the stomachs, by reason of 
its indigestible nature, according to the state in wffiich it is found, 
and either its total w’ant of stimulus, or its excess of that stimu¬ 
lus which is injurious. To the abstraction of the stimulus w’hich 
good food imparts to the systems of all animals which receive it, 
I think I may venture to assert, that four-fifths of the diseases 
of cattle are entirely owing. 
