THE SOURCES OF SOUND AND HEALTHFUL ANIMAL FOOD. 
321 
this salutary effect of the potability of foods for the quick fatten¬ 
ing of cattle. They take a variety of foods, and after cleaning 
and airing the stables and watering, permit the animals to select 
the food preferred, kindly giving it from the hand as long as the 
animal shows a special preference for the first selected. By this 
method the animal takes more food of each kind selected from 
time to time, does not soil or mix the kinds of foods, and returns 
with avidity to those kinds previously selected - with renewed 
eagerness. And when satisfied, a lock of hay is placed before it, 
the place closed, and the animal luxuriates upon it, and 
leisurely chews the cud of contentment during the quiet per¬ 
formance of the complicated functions of digestion and assimi¬ 
lation. Thus, twice daily is this gentle and perfect process car¬ 
ried on to the fattening, mellowing and ripening of beef animals 
in the shortest time, and of those at maturity of life, after hav¬ 
ing been made more than self-supporting for six or eight years, 
and producing the best quality and greatest quantity of 
nutritious beef. Similar methods are resorted to in feedino- 
other animals. The veal of the Halles Centrales of Paris is of 
superlative excellence. Large, pink-fleshed, white-fatted and 
luscious. Sweet milk and fresh eggs have perfected its quality, 
and French cooking makes it the most appetizing of food. 
It has often been said that a cow is a machine to manufac¬ 
ture fodder and grain into milk. But, though far lower in the 
scale of creation than mankind, yet, like man, she is endowed 
with vitality, that sublime principle pervading every organ, 
function and tissue ; she has the senses in great perfection ; she 
is appreciative of kindness, and under it she elaborates better 
and larger products. And as object lessons are universally ap¬ 
preciated, were it compatible with the general methods of your 
valuable journal, I could more clearly illustrate these articles on 
a subject so deeply interesting and so essential to the health and 
well-being of the public. But under the circumstances I must 
confine myself to less perfect pen-pictures of animals bred and 
kept for human food products. 
Economy demands that our domestic animals should be, as 
