The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1894-02-07
Rational Cattle Feeding---NO. 6.
tFrom the French of Jules Crevat.l


Two principles exist in nature, Mat
ter and Motion; both in fixed and in
variable quantity, but capable of under
going a vast number of apparent trans
formations, and of manifesting them
selves to our senses in an infinite va
riety of ways. Thus all material things,
however diverse, are the results of the
C iemical combinations of few simple
elementary substances - metals and
metaloids-which unite in thousand
different ways, without any loss of
weight, or of substance. In like man
ner, motion transforms itself into heat,
light, electricity, magnetism, gravity
without there being in these transfor-
nations any loss of active force. We
have taken in France] for the unit of
weight, the kilogram; and for the unit
of work, the kilogrammeter. The kilo-
gram is the weight of one litre r12
pints of pure water, at its greatest
natural density. The kilogrammeter
represents the work required to raise
one kilogram vertically to the height of
one meter, without reference to the
length of time required. We have
taken, for the unit of heat, one "cal-
ory"; or the heat required to raise
one kilogram of distilled water, one de-
gree, centigrade Tive degrees Fahren-
heit].
BY great number of very ingenious
tests we have found that it requires
about 425 kilogrammeters of work to
produce one calory of heat. This con-
stitutes the mechanical equivalent of
heat ";-the greatest discovery of mod
ern science. In mechanics we often,
for the sake of brevity, use, in place of
ga great unit of work." the word "dyn-
amy" which equals 1000 kilogram-
meters. This will be the unit used,
and will be represented by the abbre-
Walton "dyn."
NOTE, by the translator.-While we
translate the above Introductory note,
because it cannot fail to be of use to
the reader, we shall, as far as possible,
represent these new French weights,
measures, etc., by their common Eng
lish equivalents. Though far better
than the old system, and accepted by
scientific writers in all countries to a
greater or less extent, they have not
yet become fully popularized, even in
France.
Abstractly, we may look upon ami
NAL life as continual expansion of the
general life, spread throughout nature
under the diverse forms of natural
forces, and concentrated by the vege-
table kingdom in organic forms. The
plant condenses this general life to
latent state,-smilar to that of the
heat which becomes latent in the melt
ing of ice. The animal disengages it,
and makes it manifest; its life is an ex-
pansion of it. The plant condenses as
latent heat the sun force, which the ami
NAL consumes in living,-au admirable
harmony of nature, of which the re-
versed respiration of the two kingdoms,
so often cited, is but feeble imagel
If the animal kingdom failed to set
free the sum of vitality stored up by the
vegetable kingdom, the latter would at
last absorb all the heat, the light and
the electricity dispersed through ma
ture, which would thus become frozen,
dark and dead. The plant, therefore,
is the natural aliment of the animal !;
and while the vegetable is the former
of organic material, the animal is its de-
stroyer, being powerless to form di-
rectly any superior organized princi-
Piles. The animal can totally disorgan-
ize the starchy matters, the fats and
oils, and the protein principles of veg
etables, Transforming these into water,
carbonic acid, urea,-or perhaps only
partially disorganize them, by changing
the starchy parts into sugar and the
proteins into fat; but it can never form
protein, sugar, or fat, as the plant does,
: from their mineral elements.
These great general principles will
, be taken by me as guide in the study
of rational feeding, and will throw the
light of a new day upon the most del
f icate questions, such as the formation
of fat,-the source of muscular power.
| How often do we say that horse, or
an OK, has worked off " all his fat!
, And yet how many of US fully realize
: that this fat was really stored-up
: strength; as Mons. Crevat tells us?]
D From the practical point of view Of
= the farmer, the animal is machine,
formed to make various useful products
out of his food. The animal, being q
s living machine, ought to be kept con
r tinually in action, for action is life
f By its anatomic organization the ami
= NAL machine cannot act except at 9
t temperature more or less high, accord