JAN 49 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
41 
farm Crottamij. 
DISTRIBUTION OF FAT IN THE BODIES 
OF ANIMALS. IV. 
PROF. F. H. STOKER. 
There is a palpable difficulty inherent to old 
evidence, such as has accumulated before a 
question has been broached or even formu¬ 
lated, in that it seldom or never bears directly 
upon the point at issue. Such evidence, 
though of undoubted value in the lack of bet¬ 
ter information, can only faintly illuminate 
the question. It ts of the nature of a side¬ 
light which serves to stimulate to new inves¬ 
tigation rather than to exhibit, the matter 
sought for. It is in this sense that we must 
interpret some of the statements already on 
record which seem to favor the idea that 
albuminoid food may tend to produce mar¬ 
bled meat. Morton’s Cycloptedia, for ex¬ 
ample, says, It is well known to the experi¬ 
enced that the flesh of animals fed on grain 
and pulse is firm, well-flavored and economi¬ 
cal in the cooking, and that flesh possesses 
such qualities in a less degree when produced 
from succulent or pulpy substances such as 
roots, whilst food containing fixed oO, such 
as linseed, imparts greasiness, high color, 
and grossness to the fat. and, when used in 
considerable quantity, a rank flavor to the 
flesh.’’ Settegast, a German writer, says: 
“By feeding with highly nutritious fodder, 
rich in albuminoids, not omitting an allow¬ 
ance of grain, there will be produced Arm 
granular tat and flesh that contains compara¬ 
tively little water; whereas the fat obtained 
from watery, forcing, ‘bloating’ foods is less 
firm, and the flesh coutains a larger propor¬ 
tion of water,” and as Gisborne has put it, 
perhaps a shade too strongly, “We consider 
firmness in the fat. aud a fine grain in the 
lean to he the criteria of quality, and believe 
that in those animals where fat and lean are 
associated, the firmest fat invariably covers 
the finest-grained lean.'" 
There seems to be considerable unanimity of 
feeling to the eJFect that grass fed beef is ex¬ 
cellent, provided the animals have been fully 
fattened, though some of the statements rela¬ 
ting to the matter are confused by sugges¬ 
tions concerning the influence of exercise and 
fresh air, as in the following citation from an 
old French authority: “Age, food, country, 
and locality make the flesh of animals to be* 
very different. Animals that have been well 
nourished, have respired pure air, and have 
had freedom of movement, always yield a 
more delicate, healthy and nourishing meat” 
The following, from a modern German au¬ 
thority, is more to the point: “The flesh of 
neat cattle, and especially that of oxen, which 
have been fattened in pastures, is incompara¬ 
bly better as regards delicacy, flavor and nu- 
tritiousness than that of animals which have 
been fed in stalls.” 1 have met one or two 
practical men, here in Boston, who, while ad¬ 
mitting that our grass-fed beef is ofteu fairly 
well fattened as things are now. and that it 
would be perfectly possible to make the ani¬ 
mals very fat and their flesh well marbled if 
they could only be kept on the grass long 
enough, neverthless argue that much better 
results would be obtained if the pasturing sea¬ 
son were long enough to permit the fattening 
process to be pushed further than it common¬ 
ly is on grass alone. It is in this sense, doubt¬ 
less, that some American writers have claimed 
that better grass-fed beef is to be found at 
Philadelphia, and the cities to the westward 
on the same degree of latitude as Philadel¬ 
phia, than is commonly produced iu the re¬ 
gions lying to the northward of that highly 
favored belt. English writers have admitted, 
for their part, that there is only a very small 
proportion of grass land in England, aud u 
still smaller proportion, ns they hold, in other 
European countries, which is competent, un¬ 
assisted, to turu off animals of the degree of 
fatness required by modern customers. A fa¬ 
miliar example of grass feeding is to be seen 
in the buffalo, whose flesh, though of coarser 
texture than beef, is reputed to be more juicy 
and to have the fat and lean better distribu¬ 
ted. Buffalo veal, on the contrary, accordiug 
to Gregg, is rarely good, beiug generally poor 
owing to the scanty supply of milk which the 
cows afford and to the calves running so much 
from hunters aud wolves. Mr. B. F. Johnson 
has already used this illustration in the Ru¬ 
ral Nkw-Yokkkr for November 12, 1881, 
where, in remarking that the flesh of grass- 
fed beeves is particularly juicy and sweet 
while their fat and tallow are hard and Ann 
and not liable to shrink ou cooking, ho says: 
“How a grass diet favorably affects the 
sweetness of the fat aud juiciness of the leau 
is well illustrated In the meat of the buffalo.’’ 
So, too, the firm fat aud excellent couditiou 
of fat venison have often been remarked. 
“Both the tallow aud the fat of grass-fed 
beeves are harder than those of animals which 
have been fed on Indian corn, while the flesh 
is juicier and sweeter. In times past when 
house lights were chiefly furnished oy tallow 
candles, those who could obtained the tallow to 
make them from grass-fed beeves, because 
this tallow would make candles that would not 
run; whereas that taken from corn-fattened 
cattle required the addition of alum or some 
other similar substance to harden it.” The 
superior hardness of Siberian tallow has long 
been noted and has sometimes been attributed 
to the cattle having been fed on dry fodder; a 
view which is in accord with a belief formerly 
current iu Germany, that relatively speaking, 
hard fat is produced iu Winter and soft fat in 
Summer. It is not inconsistent with the fol¬ 
lowing statement from an old French cyclo¬ 
pedia: “Caudle-makers give a lower price for 
the tallow of animals fattened ou grass. They 
say that it is greenish and less consistent than 
it should be, and that there is considerable 
loss on melting it. They say that it is not ripe 
enough.” Another French authority of the 
last century asserts that the flavor of the flesh 
and quality of the fat which is interlarded 
with the flesh of the cattle of Auvergne and 
Limosiu, are due to the hay taken from moun¬ 
tains and to the mixture of walnut-cake, tur¬ 
nips and rye flour with which the animals are 
fed. The flesh of these cattle was thought to 
be improved by driving. It was highly es¬ 
teemed at Palis. According to Von Goliren, 
it is generally recognized in Germany that 
animals which get grain with their food yield 
flesh of good grain, and that the conceptions 
“korn” and “keru” are intimately related. In 
this country an opinion prevails that beef fat¬ 
tened on distillery slop, that is to say the ni¬ 
trogenous part of Indian corn from which the 
starchy portion has been removed, is sweeter 
and juicier than the flesh of cattle that have 
been corn-fed. Of some beeves fed in Eng. 
land ou turnips, oil cake and bean-meal, and 
slaughtered before they were fully ripe. Mr. 
Frere reports that: 
“The butcher was highly satisfied with the 
quality of the meat, which I myself also 
proved; it was nicely mottled and quite fat 
enough. This is noteworthy, because many 
will think chat the beans, and consequently 
the albuminous element supplied to the ani¬ 
mals, had undue prominence in their diet. I 
can only say r that repeated observation of 
benefit received from mixing or substituting 
bean-meal for that of other grain has led to 
its constant use ou my farm at some incon¬ 
venience, because beans are not grown on the 
land and are not plentiful in the neighborhood." 
Accordiug to Karkeek, “great quantities of 
bean-meal are used in some inlaud districts 
of England in the feeding of bacon hogs, but 
it is found to make the flesh too firm for deli¬ 
cate porkers, and in the last stage of their fat¬ 
tening barley-meal is substituted. Some feed* 
ers reject the gray pea, from an idea that it 
partakes in a degree of the nature of the bean 
in rendering the meat tough and hard.” The 
durability of the fat obtained from vetches 
has already been alluded to. and it is natural 
to suppose that all leguminous seeds might 
teud to produce marbled meat, if any special 
food eau do so. I am assured by a Boston 
dealer that “pea-fed”beef, such as was form¬ 
erly brought to the Boston market from Can¬ 
ada, was very white and handsome, though in 
his opinion it showed no more of the ‘‘pepper 
and salt” (marbling) than any other kind of 
beef did. 
In this connection the meat from oil-cake 
may again be referred to, and probably no 
better statement as to its merits can be found 
than the following, which I cite from one of 
Mr. Gisborne's essays: “ In spite of repeated 
denunciations, oil-cake maintains its ground. 
The popular tradition respecting it is singular. 
For many years linseed crushers threw what 
they considered as the refuse of the mill to 
the manure heap. A cottagers lane-fed cow, 
having access to one of these heaps, was ob¬ 
served to be frequeutly feeding at it, aud she 
gave evidence, by the sleeekness of her coat 
and the increased fullness of the pail, that the 
food was highly beneficial. So it came into 
use, aud was soou found to produce fat as no 
article had ever produced it before. Veterin¬ 
arians of some standing will remember the de¬ 
nunciation of cake-fed beef. It was asserted 
that it had an unnatural taste, that the 
shambles where it prevailed had an unnatural 
smell, that the grain was coarse, the fat liquid 
or rancid, that the meat would not keep, and 
so forth, but it came to pass iu time thut the 
leadiug London butchers gave sixpence per 
Smithfield stone extra for Norfolk fed Scots 
(the animals, of all iu the market, which bad 
eaten the most oil-cake), simply because they 
dared uot send any other sort of beef to the 
nobility and gentry w ho were their custom¬ 
ers. No other article of food (excepting per¬ 
haps bean-meal, which has the disadvantage 
of making the flesh hard), gives to a butcher 
the same full confidence that the dead weight 
of an animal will be fully equal to its appear¬ 
ance when alive. All prejudices against this 
food were founded on the three letters, OIL. 
Persons who are prejudiced neither investi¬ 
gate nor reason, or they would have discov¬ 
ered that linseed-cake consists of the husks 
and farinaceous parts of linseed from which 
most of the oil has been expressed by power¬ 
ful machinery, and that, though the quantity 
of oil expressed from a given quantity of seed 
has been constantly on the increase, in conse¬ 
quence of improvements in the machinery, 
there has been no corresponding, or indeed 
any decrease in the fat-producing properties 
of the cake. The same delusion which ap¬ 
palled the consumers delighted the producers 
of beef. They fancied that it was about to 
lead them to an important discovery. They 
argued, not illogieally, < if the remains of oil 
in this article of cake have such great feed¬ 
ing properties, how vast must they be before 
any oil has been expressed from it!’ ” 
Early iu this century one of the most sys¬ 
tematic stall-feeders in the midland counties 
made extensive preparations for crushing, 
steaming and steepinglinseed. Some other feed- 
era went a step further, and said: “ If oil adul¬ 
terated with husks, etc., is so feeding, how 
much more feeding must oil unadulterated 
be?” And they gave the oil neat. But all the 
parties soon relinquished such practice. The 
result did not hear out the ft pirtovi reasoning. 
The beasts so fed never got very fat, and 
the fat they had was very loose and oleagin¬ 
ous.” According to Playfair, sheep fed on 
oil-cake together with oats and barley, are 
firm to the touch and possess plenty of good 
flesh, and the fat lies equally distributed 
amongst the muscular fiber. Possibly a com¬ 
bination of albuminous and oily food, such as 
old-process oil-cake afforded, may be specially 
wel 1 adapted for the simultaneous production 
of adipose tissue and of marbled meat. With 
food thus mixed, the conditions would cer¬ 
tainly seem to be favorable for producing 
both these results. There are some experi¬ 
ments by Radziejewski, which may possibly 
be best explained on this supposition, though 
it must be confessed that they seem to point 
merely to the deposition of fat that was eaten 
as such. On feeding a dog with horse meat 
that was almost absolutely free from fat, until 
the animal had become very lean, and then 
giving him similar meat with an addition of 
rape-oil, considerable quantities of fat were 
found after death, upon the mesenterium 
(caul) as well as on the throat and belly, while 
the muscular fiber ulso was found to be filled 
with fat. So long ns the starving animal con¬ 
tinued to bear the oily food he gained in 
weight each da}*, but diarrhoea and vomiting 
soon set in aud hindered the increase in weight. 
In the case of another starving dog fed with 
the lean horse flesh and soap made from rape- 
oil, the animal gained weight continually, and 
there was a good cushion of fat on the mesen¬ 
terium, while the muscles were found to be 
full of fat globules, as before. In still an¬ 
other animal that had been fed with lean meat 
and a soap made from tallow, there was found 
a large cushion of fat on the mesenterium and 
the throat. 
LEAKS IN THE BARN-YARD. 
As available nitrogen is worth in the mar¬ 
ket from 00 to 25 cents a pound, the farmer 
before spending his money on such an expen¬ 
sive fertilizer, should look at home and see if 
he is saving that already on his farm, on the 
principle that a penny saved is two pence 
earned. Tn making manure, the great waste 
is in allowing the urine to soak away in the 
stables aud be lost, a loss that taking place 
daily and in small quantities, is unnoticed by 
many, but the sura of which is surprising. I 
give below the quantities of urine furnished 
yearly by the domestic animals, on the au¬ 
thority of Prof. Stoekhardt, and the nitrogen 
contents accordiug to Prof. Wolff. 
One cow yields S.W lbs. containing nu lbs. 
nitrogen at 30 cents per pound. *>> ■» 
One horse do. 3,100 do lfi.5 do. do " 9 30 
One sheep do. SSO do. 7.1 do. do. lis 
One pig do. l,3A) do. 5.1 do. do. tioa 
Of course the value of manure depeuds on 
the feed more than on the animal, and ana- 
alyses vary accordingly. Thus Stoekhardt 
gives 1(3 pounds of nitrogen iu a ton of cow’s 
urine agaiust ll.fi pounds by Wolff. My 
figures are based on the smaller quantity. 
Urine is valuable principally for its nitro¬ 
gen (of which excepting that of swine; it con¬ 
tains more than double the amount that is 
found iu an equal weight of solid excrement. 
Besides its quantity, the nitrogen in urine is 
highly available, and worth as much per 
pound as that in ammonia salts. Nitrogen in 
solid excrement is not immediately available. 
A large part remains for many years in the 
soil, locked-up capital, of no present, aud not 
much prospective, value. It may be objected 
that my values are high. They are high; but 
I am stating a fact, that the nitrogen found in 
8,00u pounds of cow's urine would cost, if pur¬ 
chased in an equally available condition, at 
least $9.28. What it is worth to the farmer 
is another matter, depending largely on his 
locality and crops. Stoekhardt says: “Thus 
in Flemish agriculture, the yearly nnne of a 
cow is estimated at ten dollars, and this sum 
is actually paid for it there.” Whenever it 
will pay a farmer to purchase available nitro¬ 
gen, my figures give the value of urine to that 
farmer, and to all farmers who use manuie 
a pound of urine is worth for its nitrogen four 
pounds of 3olid dung; first, because the for¬ 
mer contains twice as much nitrogen as the 
latter; second, because each pound, being 
available, is worth at least two pounds that 
are unavailable. 
And now what are we doing to save this 
valuable urine? How many of us let it 
waste? How few appreciate and carefully 
save it? I know men, and not a few, who 
buy nitrogen in commercial fertilizers at 
from 25 to 40 cents a pound, who do not at¬ 
tempt to save a drop of this urine from their 
stabled stock. If convinced of its value, the 
battle is half won. It will take but little 
energy to save the greater part, if not the 
whole. If onr cattle and horses stand on plank 
floors, see that these are tight; if on the earth, 
bed them well, and occasionally remove the 
soil to a depth sufficient to take out the satu¬ 
rated earth, refilling the cavity With fresh 
loam. There is very little trouble about it, 
if we only mean to do it. And once begun, 
like other saving habits, it grows upon one, 
until at last every little leak is noticed and pro¬ 
vided for. I don’t think much of liquid 
manure tanks, perhaps because I have never 
used them; for I prefer plenty of absorbents, 
not forgetting dry earth, that may be the best 
of all. GEORGE CLEKDON, JR. 
fkliJ Craps. 
SEED CORN ONCE MORE. 
The losses and vexatious delays of last sea¬ 
son and the likelihood of future experience of 
the same nature are my only excuses for this 
article. The reports from the great corn-pro 
ducing States all agree that a large part of 
the coni is “soft” This is just the sort of 
corn that deceives the farmer. If he gathers 
seed early in the Autumn, he is apt to attri¬ 
bute the softness and moisture to the imma¬ 
turity of the corn. If he does not gather it at 
that time, he defers gathering till he cribs the 
corn, and by that time the corn is frozen in 
many cases and rendered solid. Bat the germ 
of such corn is easily destroyed by frost, I 
do not think the germ of matured dry corn is 
apt to be injured by any cold that occurs in 
this latitude. But when the germ is damp, a 
slight freeze only will destroy its vitality. 
Moisture may remain in the grain or in the 
cob. In either case frost will be likely to 
prove fatal. A neighbor of mine carefully 
selected nice-appeaiing, solid ears in the late 
Fall, of ’83, while gathering his corn to crib. 
After they had dried as he thought sufficient¬ 
ly. he boxed them up to keep the mice out of 
mischief. In the Winter he pried off the lid 
of the box to display his fire seed corn, and, 
lo ! it was covered with frost. Tests showed 
that it bad been damaged fatally. 
Undoubtedly seed is best selected early in 
the Fall if proper precautions are taken after¬ 
wards. The coni should be thoroughly dried 
before it is put away. Not only should the 
grain be dry. but be eertaiu that the cob is 
free from moisture. Then keep it in some dry 
place. In seasons like this, when the corn is 
soft, it is the safer plan to select small ears for 
seed. These will generally be the better ma¬ 
tured. This may appear like bad advice; but 
it is better to plant this than large-eared corn 
that will not germinate. Because the ear is 
small is no reason why it should be unfilled 
and generally of poor quality. The farmer 
will be disposed this year to take what he has 
at hand though it mav not be the very best. 
Those of us who sent out of the State for seed 
last year are not apt to do so this year, “if the 
court knows itself, and it thinks it does.” 
I believe I can tell, upon examination, 
whether or not com will germinate. Cut off 
enough of the small end of the grain to ex¬ 
pose the germ. If the germ is firm and clear, 
it is all right; but if it is spongv and yellow, 
or black, its vitality has been destroyed. But 
the surest and best test is to select a grain 
from each ear, note their number, plant them, 
and see what percentage grows. This should 
be attended to now. Prepare a box of earth 
to plant the corn in. and keep it behind the 
kitchen stove during the day; when the fire 
has died down at night put it in the oven. It 
should be remembered that under such con¬ 
ditions com will sprout, that will not in the 
Spring if the ground happens to be cold and 
wet. I am satisfied that much of the corn 
which failed to germinate last Spring would 
have come through >11 right if the ground 
