The Dorset County Express and Agricultural Gazette.
Dorchester, Dorset, England, 1862-01-07 00:00:00

(Agriculture.
FEEDING SU &STANCES.

We apprehend there are few persons who can visit the
great fat stock shows in Baker-street and Birmingham,
or the vast kletrepolitan stock market on the Monday
preceding Christmas week, without sonic appreciation of
the immense amount of capital and the wonderful
degrees of skill and management which go to furaish
the meat supplies of the community at the present time.
When, in addition to the great displays of fat stuck we
have named, it is remembered that at this season every
cattle market throughout the country exhibits a show
of stock more than ordinarily well fed, something like
I surprise may be felt at the modern development of this
brooch of our rural economy.
The first prize shorthorn oz at the Baker.street show,
which obtained the gold metal, sold for £B5; and others
of the oattle were sold for very large sums. The best of
She *stile and sheep brought prices in advance of the
prices of even the great Christmas market., due no doubt,
to the circumstance that many butchers are anxious to
exhibit the 'carcases of animals in their shops at F
Christmas as • matter of professional pride and as
mode olattracting customers. Several of the long-Ira:Medi
sheep were above five and • half feet in girth, eadothi,
largest of the Cotswolds were estimated to windlass,
much as 50 lb per quarter. Even in the open market.
many of the oxen brought prices varying from ESO to.
£5O and upwards, and prime sheep were proportionally
high priced. Nor were these prima Obtained for a few
picked specimens such as may be supposed to conatitute
the stock thown in Bakeretreel or Birmingham, for the
.ell-known Aberdeenshire grimier, Mr. MCombie, sent
no less than forty bullocks, while other feeders, both
Earghsh and Scotch, contributed onneerry &similar Beale.
Those who can look back for Itneaend.tventy and
thirty years, note the vast i 4.3ralich has
takes place in fat stock from this bed exertions of
breeders and feeder, during that period. The
slow-feeding beast, and sheep which then constituted
the majority of our fat stock have given plum to well-
bred animals, at once more profitable to feeders amid
more satisfactory to consumers. At the same time,
feeding has been conducted with greater skill and
economy. The large quantities of Mimics and meal
which were formerly deemed essential to .feeding leave
been greatly reduced, science and experience alike demon-
strating that an &WOW eta only aarimilate • certain and
moderate proportion of each feeding ',thiamin's, and that
the supine merely dam to enrich, the manure. Adana,
the cutting and pulping roots, and the dotting hay and
straw into chaff, have moth esionomised the ordinary
provinder of our live stook, and aid to produoe the
general result, an increased supply el meat, and better
meat, from the consumption of a definite quantity of
food.

,
money is wasted in feeding than ferigiMlX4mt
still more is expended in peoduaiag fat meatalinalletnY
cases, than need be; so that farther clisermellied
consideration of the subject, both from • esientifielead
practical point of view' are well worthy of
Professor Anderson at • recent meeting of the •
land Agricultural Anderson,
delivered a very a e
and useful lecture on "The laileenee of Accessory
Substances on the Feeding of Stooks" He stated the
principle of feeding to oonsint in doe attention to
"the nature of the food, and its nee is sash manner
and in such quantities as are statuary to•maiutain the
vital (auctions in • state of healthy action, and the '
particular conditions under which the constant wants
of the tissues may be reduced within the narrowest
possible limits, and. the quantity of food raptired to
supply the place of the effete matters may be dimin-
ished to the greatest extent." l'o anoomplials this tLe
habits of the animals mast be studied, the kinds of
food they prefer most be considered, and each food i
should be n different proportions and in varying modes,
so as to keep their appetites, and by consequence the
power if digestion, iu the best tone. Most of our
knowledge on feeding has been obtained by experience
and observation, and of late science has systematised
observation and coupled with it the explanation of the
facts 'observed. We "start from the kuowledge
acquired by experience, and seek to discover tiie
ralioacile of every fact, end endeavour to generalise and
classify."
Thus, "the tendency of science is to diminish the
number of trials which end in loss, and thus to esquire
practical knowledge with greater rapidity and economy."
Chemistry, however, does mot always correctly indicate
the value of some substances for feeding, the animal
organism and taste not being suited by what appears to
be an equivalent food. For instance, rape-cake, so far
as analysis can discover, is fully equal in nutritious
elements to linseed-cake, but inasmuch as rape contains
a very small portion of a bitter prinaple, resinous in
character, cattle and sheep can with difficulty be induued
to eat it. Usually a proportion of rape-cake only can
be used mixed with linseed-cake. When stock can be
induced to eat the former, a oonsiderable.saving is
effected, rape-cake, being 'bout one-half the price of
linseed-cake. "it had been fully established that
only a very small proportion of the nutritive matter'
of the food is stored up within the body in the form of
flesh and fat, and that even under the most favourable
circumstances by far the larger proportion is practically
wasted, or at least reduced to the leas valuable form
of manure." Here we see at once • reason for not
giving excessive quantities of highly nutritious food,
and that the true plan of feeding is that gradual one
which, continued over • considerable time enables the
animals slowly to assimilate the flesh and fat-forming
elements. So, again, some animals have the faculty of
retaining a larger portion of fat-forming constituents of
their food than others. In farmers' phrase, " they are
good doers." And the grazier who has the most skill in
selecting animals likely to feed well, must generally
obtain a better return for the food he expends than
worse judges of steak sea do. These are points to
which the attention of skilful farmers ought to be
earnestly directed, and the result will assuredly be •
greater economy in the use of feeding substances.
There are, however, new and costly articles of food to
which the attention of farmers has been urgently and
perseveringly called of late years. These were originally
represented as "concentrated" food, and stock-feeders
were asked to believe that a small bulk of the new
compound would prove a substitute for corn and cake.
That as soon shown to be fallacy, and theta compounds
are no* represented to be " condiments' " which assist
digestike, and so enable fatting animals to assimilate
larger proportions of their food than they would do if
fed sdthout any "condiment." This is as baseless a
pretence as the first. The benefits now claimed by the
makers for their cattle "condiments," were at one ti.ne
supposed to be obtained by the use of salt; but as Mr.
Anderson reminds us—and he recites numerous experi-
ments of the subject—has been found to retard, instead I
of hastening, the fattening process. He says: '' The
general conclusion to be drawn from all the experiments '
and observations now detailed is, that whatever benefits
may accrue to the health of the animals by the use of
condiments, of which oomuion salt may be taken as the
type, they are without effect on the quantity of nutri-
tious matter assimilated ; and salt, when used in con-
siderable quantity' actually causes the expenditure of an
extra quantity of food to produce the same increase in '
live weight. He then refers to the advertised " condi-
mental, food," to which farmers are invited, and my*:
"They are, in fact, mixtures of the most ordinary ,
materials, consisting of Indian corn, rice, bean-meal,
ground carob beans, or other similar snbatanoes, along
with • small quantity of aromatic seeds, and in nine
instances out of tea • bitter substance, apparently ,
gentian."
It is absurd to suppose that half a pint of such com-
pounds can he used as a substitute for corn or cake, and
as condiments they are found to be quite without effect
on feeding animals. The exact proportion in which the
aromatic substances enter into these compounds cannot
be accurately determined, bat they do not exceed 10 per
amt. "Indian corn, carob beaus, kn., cost £8 or £9 per
ton' and fecungree and sarraway seeds about £2O to
£25. A mixture of nine tons of the former, and one
of the latter, should therefore be sold at £lO or £ll per
ton, in place of £3O or £3O, the price actually charged,
so that now, if them goods do produce the alleged effect,
Ski. farmer is made to pay for them three times their
intrinsic ralue. This fact is of itself a sufficient com-
ment on what has been already stated, and the truth is
that the 'discoveries' of which the makers of these
foods boast are confined to the art of extracting money
(ruin the pockets of the farmer." Finch is the deliberate
conclusion at which Professor Anderson arrives in
regard to our modern cattle compounds, and the farmer
who with such hints before him, allows himself to be
seduced into wasting his money on sucks quackeries
deserves no sympathy.