JAN 42 
25 
farm Cfmwmij. 
distribution of fat in the bodies 
OF ANIMALS. 
III. 
PROF. F. H. STOKER. 
There are a number of trustworthy experi¬ 
ments that go to show that f»t is really de¬ 
posited out of the blood, suggested in the 
previous article. Thus Boussingault, on feed¬ 
ing lean ducks with a mixture of rice and 
butter, found that enormous quantities of fat 
were deposited within and upon the Bodies of 
the birds. A duck fed upon butter alone died 
of starvation at the end of three weeks, but 
meanwhile the bird became absolutely sat¬ 
urated with butter so that even the feathers 
looked as if they had been dipped in melted 
butter. On cramming geese with Indian 
corn, he found that while the amounts of fat 
on the intestines and the caul were each ten 
times larger in the fatted birds than in those 
that were lean, the amount of fat under the 
skin and iu the flesh and liver (taken toge¬ 
ther) had increased a little more than four 
times during the fattening. Hoffmann, on 
the other hand, starved a dog during thirty 
days to the utmost degree of leanness and 
then fed him freely during five days on 
fresh bacon, which the auirnal ate greedily. 
He was slaughtered on the sixth day and 
carefully examined. Large accumulations 
of fat were found upon the kidneys and in the 
mesentoriura l.caul), so that pieces of it could 
be cut off with scissors, while in the muscles 
of the animal there was no more fat found 
than is ordinarily contained in normal dog’s 
muscles, viz : a trifle less than four per cent. 
It appeared then that in this extreme case fat 
was first deposited “inwardly,” that is to say 
on organs near the intestines out of which 
the fat had but just passed iuto the blood. 
It was manifest, moreover, in this experi¬ 
ment that no more than a small fraction of 
the fat actually stored in the dogs body 
could possibly have been derived from al¬ 
buminoid matters in the food. The fat that 
was stored had been eaten as fat. 
In a somewhat similar way, J. Forster fed 
one starving pigeon with fresh bacon, and 
another with flesh and starch, and found that 
the fat of the bacon, and that from the food 
rich in starch also, accumulated to a very 
noticeable extent under the skin. This side 
of the question has been fairly well studied. 
What we now need to determine with equal 
care is whether it may not be tiue that when 
albuminoid food is eaten under fit conditions 
the products which result from its absorp¬ 
tion into the system are decomposed by cell 
action, in all parts of the body perhaps, in 
such wise that a quantity of fat is formed in 
the midst of the muscular tissue aud there 
left deposited within and around the cells by 
whose action it was generated, so that the 
meat shall be thoroughly marbled. 
Of course, there can be nothing absolute in 
either of the different modes of depositing 
fat, as above suggested. Some of the food- 
fat will naturally go to the muscles, aud a 
part, of the albumen-fat formed in the mus¬ 
cles will move on, as Subbotiu has shown, to be 
stored under the skin or upou the intestines, 
in the adipose tissue proper. The question here 
at issue is one of teudency rather than of con¬ 
summation. It is to be remembered, more¬ 
over, that the foods with which ruminating 
animals are fattened are ordinarily neither 
very highly albuminous nor very highly 
carbohydrated. All that cau be said is that 
some of them are more (or loss) albuminous 
than others, and it would hardly be reason¬ 
able to suppose that the differences between 
the meats of animals fed with these foods 
would be greater than the differences between 
the foods themselves. There is, however, one 
fact familiar to everybody who has had much 
to do with the fattening of animals, which 
tends to show that there is no special improb¬ 
ability in the Idea that fat derived from 
albuminoids may be deposited in different 
positions from those to which the fat from 
the fodder and chat formed from starch is 
naturally carried or attracted. As every 
farmer knows, the quality of the flesh of 
fattened animats, and particularly the qual¬ 
ity of their fat, varies very much accordingly 
as one or another food has beeu habitually 
given to them. Statements such as the fol¬ 
lowing abound in agricultural literature: 
Oily foods have always a tendency to make 
soft fat.—Even oil-cake is apt to impart a dis¬ 
agreeable odor to flesh, and to j ield fat that 
is less firm than is desirable.—Sheep fed on 
oil-cake increase in weight faster than on any 
other kind of food, but they feel quite soft, 
and when fat handle like a bag of oil.—Oil¬ 
cake or flaxseed fed to hogs gives loose, grousy 
THE BUBAL NEW-YOBKEB, 
flesh of unpleasant odor.—In experiments 
made at Moeckem, where hogs were fed 
on rape-cake and slop from a potato-distillery, 
it was found that the fat of the animals, even 
that tried out from the bacon, was so fluid 
that it did not solidify even at 25 to 30 deg. 
Fah , but remained a thick oil at this tem¬ 
perature. Leucbs says of oil-cake that it may 
be given to swine and poultry, as well as 
oxen, at the beginning of fattening, but that 
it Bhould not be fed at the close of the pro¬ 
cess, because it gives yellow fat and flesh of 
unpleasant flavor. Another story w'as that i 
wheu much oil-cake is fed to cows their but¬ 
ter will be softer than it is when the animals 
are fed with brewers’ grains, beet press-cake 
or grain. It may here be said that these old 
statements about oil-cake are given for what 
they are worth, and merely for the sake of 
illustration. They were probably true enough 
at a time when the proper modes of feeding 
oil-cake were not so well understood as they 
are now; and there may have been some¬ 
thing. too, in the fact that the proportion of 
oil left in the oil-cake was formerly larger 
than it has been in more recent years. As is 
well understood nowadays, oil-cake must 
really be classed among the albuminoid foods 
rather than among those that are oily, though 
of course the two kinds of constituents are 
happily commingled in it. As will be stated 
further on, the results obtained by using oil¬ 
cake in fattening animals plainly depend in 
good part upon the albuminoids contained in it. 
To continue the quotations: “Still-fed 
pork shrinks on being boiled, while corn-fed 
pork will swell out rather than shriuk in the 
pot. Of two pigs four months old, weighing 
41 and 43 pounds respectively, the meat of 
one that had been fed on rich kitchen-wash 
appeared very fine to the eye, but when 
roasted was coarse and greasy to the palate, 
while the other pig that had been fed on 
skim-milk with pollard and oat-meal, though 
very fat, was extremely delicate both in flesh 
and flavor.” In general, soups are supposed 
to produce soft flesh aud fat. According to 
Prof. Gamgee, pigs fed on flesh have a pecu¬ 
liar, soft, diffluent fat, and emit a strong odor 
from their bodies. According to another 
authority, the pork from greaves or chandlers' 
scraps, fed by themselves, is loose, greasy, and 
little better than carrion, while that from 
butcher’s offal, though luscious and full of 
gravy, has a strong aud disgusting scent. It 
has been laid down by some of the older agri¬ 
cultural writers, that beech nuts, as well as 
walnut-cake, make the fat of hogs flabby, and 
that the bacon from beech-nuts is soft and 
greasy; though, on the other hand, German 
writers affirm that beech-mast gives a much 
firmer fat than oak-mast, and there is a story 
that the word bacon was originally called 
“beechin” because the finest flitches were con¬ 
sidered to be those furnished by animuls that 
were fattened on beech-mast. Clover-fed 
pork is said to be yellow, unsubstantial and 
ill-tasted. Carrots give yellow fat and flesh 
that is not of very good flavor, but in spite of 
these drawbacks they were esteemed at one 
time for feeding geese, which are said to fat¬ 
ten rapidly upou them. “Some people give 
carrots to fattening hogs, but iu this case the 
fat of the animals becomes frothy when 
boiled,” Mr. Lawes wrote, long ago, as fol¬ 
lows: “When pigs are fed freely upon highly 
succulent food, such as cooked roots, the re¬ 
fuse of starch works, and the like, they are 
frequently found to give a rapid increase: but 
pork so fed is found to shrink rapidly in the 
salting process, aud to waste consid¬ 
erably when boiled. On the other hand, 
when pigs are fattened upon the high¬ 
ly nitrogenized leguminous seeds—peas be¬ 
ing, however, if not an exception, at 
any rate much less objectionable than some 
others—the lean is said to be very hard and 
the fat also to waste iu cooking. And again 
when fish flesh, aud some strong-flavored 
oleaginous matters are given, the pork is 
found to be rank in flavor, or otherwise dis¬ 
agreeably tainted.” According to Leuebs, 
barley improves the flavor of the flesh and the 
fat of all animals, while buckwheat had better 
be fed iu conjunction with peas or vetches, in 
order to hinder the fat from being so fluid as 
it is apt to be when buckwheat is fed by itself. 
Swine fed upon peas yield a hard, white fat 
and a firmer bacon than on barley. Barley is 
one of the things that fats hogs best: so are 
boiled or ground peas and Indian corn. 
With regard to Indiun corn the European 
writers agree with our own thatswiue become 
very fat upou it, aud that their flesh is firm 
and of fairly good flavor, but they do not 
hesitate to place corn-fed pork on a lower 
plane than we do. Mr. Dunu, who recently 
traveled in this country, says: “Excepting 
in price, American bacon cannot compare 
with the best Irish, Wiltshire, or Yorkshire, 
but it is steadily improving. Were the hogs 
finished off, as they might be. with a daily meal 
of barley, instead of all corn, the bacon would 
doubtless be firmer aud lues liable to shrink 
wh6n cooked: it is not so fat as good English 
or Irish bacon. It is better boiled than 
grilled; when grilled it is apt to waste, and 
some of it emits a peculiar flavor, also.” Ac¬ 
cording to Dr. Letherby, “ preference is 
nearly always given to English bacon, not¬ 
withstanding that it is double the price of 
the American; for the flavor is better, and it 
does not boil away in cooking.” An old 
English agricultural writer argued long ago, 
that the heaviest aud best-flavored pork is ob¬ 
tained from milk, and that next in order of 
excellence comes the pork from peas, oats and 
barley. Bean-fed pork is bard, ill-flavored, 
and indigestible. Potatoes give a loose, light, 
insipid flesh which wastes very much in the 
cooking. I-Ie found the flesh of hogs fed on 
bran to be yellow, without substance, and of 
bad flavor; and that oil-cake and oily seeds]give 
a bad loose, greasy flesh of unpleasant flavor. 
It is said that the meat of hogs that have 
been fed on the sweepings of flour mills 
bleaches so much when packed, and the fat 
cracks so readily into distinct masses that 
the salted pork is not merchantable. 
It appears clearly enough from this evidence 
that different kinds of food produce different 
kinds of fats, and it is fair to suppose that 
some of these varieties of fats may move about 
within the animal more freely than others. 
Ixfimstx’[Societies, 
NOTES OF FIRST IMPRESSIONS AT THE 
SIXTH ANNUAL CHICAGO FAT 
STOCK SHOW. 
Number II. 
It is rather late perhaps to put on record 
first impressions of an event in the agricul¬ 
tural world more than a month old, but since 
I am rather confident that most of those im¬ 
pressions are sure to become sooner or later 
accomplished facts, I venture, with your per¬ 
mission, to continue and conclude them. 
*** 
Passing from the fat neat stock to the show 
of sheep and swine, one is struck with the 
weakness of both compared with the strength 
of the first. Why there should be not over 
twenty or thirty pens each of both, and 
why the swine should be so largely of the red 
and white breeds, when of the eight or ten 
millions of hogs marketed in Chicago, ninety 
per cent, fully are black or nearly so, seemed 
to demand explanation. The probable one is 
that the white and red long-haired hogs are 
fast coming into fashion, but why, it is hard 
to understand, unless points of weakness are 
beginning to be recognized in the black breeds 
which do not show themselves in the reds and 
whites. It may be that the blacks have been 
bred in-and in so closely and fed so highly 
on corn that they have parted with a portion 
of their original constitutional vigor and are 
losing that almost universal popularity they 
once enjoyed. Considering that it is ouly a 
few years since the long-haired reds and 
whites appeared to compete with the blacks, 
and the surprising rate with which they have 
increased, it is not improbable that within 
the next ten years half the bogs marketed in 
Chicago will be more or less red or white. 
Then, if the black polled cattle continue to 
gain in favor with 'Western stockmen and 
Eastern feeders as they have begun, black 
cattle may become in due time as common, 
and perhaps as desirable for beef, as black 
hogs are for mess pork and pork products now. 
*** 
In the coni and cattle States, sheep enjoy a 
popularity measured by the price of wool. 
If wool is high, sheep are all the rage; if low, 
they are neglected, and this is no doubt one 
of the reasons for the slim show of sheep. 
Of all fat stock, bogs are most difficult to 
handle. They can’t be driven, because of the 
loads of fat they carry, and iudeed they won’t 
be, because of their stubborn temper, so they 
must be lifted and carried by main strength. 
This no doubt accounts in part for the limited 
number of the black herds, but at the same 
time it demonstrates the faith, perseverance 
and energy of the breeders of the reds and 
whites, for the latter, when fat. are nearly, 
though not quite, as stubborn and helpless as 
the blacks. But fat sheep can be handled and 
driven as readily as cattle, if they are given 
time, and the difficulty of handling cannot be 
one of the reasons for the limited exhibit of 
sheep. Another cause may be the generally 
prevailing feeling with the average Western 
feeder that a sheep is good for little except for 
its wool, and therefore only accidentally and 
remotely valuable for meat. But there are 
unmistakable Indications of a complete rever¬ 
sion of this, the common estimate. Hereafter 
sheep will tie kept for mutton, in t he first place, 
aud wool will be a secondary consideration. 
Then there will bo little or none of the up- 
and downs depending on a high or low tar¬ 
iff, which have marked sheep husbandry in 
Illinois and in all the corn and cattle States. 
Then the large breeds of mutton sheep will 
find a home where food is abundant and com 
paratively cheap, in common with heavy 
horses, weighty hogs and the beef breeds of 
cattle. Then the exhibit of fat sheep and 
dressed mutton at the Chicago Fat-Stock 
Show, will be second only in magnitude and 
interest to the fat steers and cows and their 
dressed carcasses. 
*** 
And now we come to the most valuable, in¬ 
structive and interesting side of the great ex¬ 
hibit—the 18 carcasses of dressed beef, 14 or 
15 of which were Herefords, three Short-horns, 
and one Polled Angus. The competing ani¬ 
mals were butchered Wednesday, hung up 
and halved, and suffered, to cool until the 
noon of the following day. To the inexperi¬ 
enced eye, the carcasses appeared a third 
larger than the size of the prize animals 
would warrant, and as for the masses of fat 
upon and within them they exceeded anything 
that could lie imagined, looking at the creatures 
alive. The sides were first divided into quar¬ 
ters, then taken to an open space near the 
Secretary’s office, where they covered four 
tables, each four feet wide and 75 feet long, 
and with the exception of the half of one 
table, on which the slaughtered sheep and 
hogs were displayed, each carcass was kept 
by itself, one hind and one fore quarter being 
prepared for the butcher’s block, so as to 
make three piles, exhibiting the round, the 
loin, the rib-roasts and the plates. With the 
two uncut quarters each carcass made five 
piles, the whole showing ninety masses of 
heavy fat beef, the like of which, unless at 
the Christmas Fat-Stock Show at London, 
was never seen together. 
*** 
But from the housekeeper’s and the com¬ 
mercial point of view, as wonderful as these 
ninety piles of meat were as examples of 
what perfection the breeding and feeding of 
cattle have attained, it was very plainly ap¬ 
parent two or three points have been carried 
too far. The carcasses were not only too fat 
for profitable consumption here, but also for 
canning or salting, and altogether too large 
for any economical use. The buyer wants a 
whole porter-house or loin steak, if any: and 
at least a two-rib roast, if a roast at all: but 
how many are there who ask for four or five 
pounds of steak in a single cut or a two-rib 
roast weighing 20 or 25 pounds ? Then as to 
the fat compared with the lean, 60 per cent, of 
the former to 40 of the latter would not be an 
unfair estimate, to say nothing of the bone, 
which with the fat must be thrown out, mak¬ 
ing beef from very heavy and fat carcasses, 
dear food indeed. 
*** 
These mistakes of breeding and feeding are 
recognized by every stockman, whether he is - 
willing to acknowledge it or not, and here is 
where the present strength and future popu¬ 
larity of the Polled Angus cattle lie. The 
best are not over two-thirds the weight of the 
best Short-horns and Herefords. Besides, 
they have less abdominal cavity, (a point not 
generally enough noted' thicker sides and 
flanks, and through the entire carcass a great¬ 
er and better distributed proportion of lean to 
fat. These peculiarities are due both to race 
and to feeding. They are likely to last some 
time at least, since the Polled Angus cattle 
are remarkable for their almost inflexible ad¬ 
herence to one type. 
*** 
No attempts were made, I believe, at get¬ 
ting portraits of the prize animals by photo¬ 
graphy or otherwise; and no photographs were 
taken of the magnificent show of beef. This 
is a step in the right direction, because no 
portrait is far better than those cubical ex¬ 
aggerations which give the lie to every cor¬ 
rect description that may be penned. Take, 
for example, Mr. Gillett's justly celebrated 
prize steer. “McMullin." The cuts which 
misrepresent him give him a nearly straight 
back, a head carried well up. a dewlap, flanks 
nearly parallel, and so well filled out in his 
hind-quarters as to merit the description of 
‘beef to t.he heels:” whereas his back is 
nearly as curved upward as that of an ele¬ 
phant, aud in tins, together w ith his low-car¬ 
ried head, his clay-colored canvas cover, his 
monstrous size, and his long legs, he consid¬ 
erably resembles one. In fact, there is but a 
single marked point in McMu’lin’s printed por¬ 
traits by which he could be distinguished, and 
that is one lopped horn, which, however, is 
less so than in the original. McMullin is not 
only a magnificent steer, but he is a phenome¬ 
nal animal, and made so by remarkable 
physiological endowments. If it were not for 
*he high arch of his great spinal column, h 
enormous chest and the expiratory organs of 
corresponding volume, together with his ini 
