A PRIZE ESSAY. 
33 
the remarks which have been already made, and 
which I trust, reader, are now fresh in your memory, 
of the important part acted by nitrogen in dung, it 
must be plain why sex should exercise such influence. 
Firstly, in all food, as we have explained, that only 
which contains nitrogen can form flesh and blood, or 
substances of similar constitution; that is, requiring a 
larger proportion of nitrogen, as 1 milk. Hence, an 
animal with young, that is, a cow before calving, re¬ 
quires not only materials for its own repair, but to 
build up and perfect its young. Hence the food will 
be most completely exhausted of its nitrogen, and 
consequently the dung become proportionably weaker. 
Secondly, the young having been formed, then milk 
is required for its sustenance. Milk contains a large 
proportion of nitrogenous or blood-forming elements, 
and so the cause which originally made the dung 
weak, continues to operate during all the time the 
animal is in milk. Sex, then, it is evident, affects 
materially the quality of the dung. 
4th. The condition. If the animal is in good condi¬ 
tion, and full grown, it requires only food enough to 
supply materials to renew its waste. 
Hence the food, supposing that always in sufficient 
quantity, is less exhausted of its elements, than when 
the animal is in poor condition. In the last case, not 
only waste, but new materials must be supplied. If 
the animal is improving in flesh , (and here, reader* I 
would have you bear in mind the distinction between 
flesh and fat,) if the animal is improving in flesh, then 
the manure is always less strong than when he is 
gaining fat. There is no manure so strong as that of 
fattening animals. An animal stall-fed, kept in proper 
warmth, requires but little of his breathing food to 
keep up his heat. All the starch, gum, sugar, &c., go 
to form fat. Having little use for his muscles or flesh, 
that suffers little waste, and the nitrogen, which 
should go to form flesh, is voided in du g. If it is a 
