. of cut straw cooked together, and 84 lbs. of Swedish turnips.

According to the researches of Messrs. Lawes and Gilbert, an ox weighing
1,400 lbs. ought to gain 20 lbs. weekly when fed under cover with 8 lbs.
of crushed oil-cake, 13 lbs. of chopped clover hay, and 47 lbs. of
turnips. The chemical constituents (in a dried state) of this allowance
are as follows:--

Ounces.

Fat-formers, or heat givers 232
Flesh-formers 55
Mineral matter 29

_Cost of Maintaining Animals._--The animal mechanism, which exhibits
the least tendency to fatten, is the most costly to keep in repair, in
relation to the work performed by it. If, for example, a sheep store up
in its increase one-fifth of its food, then the remaining four-fifths
are expended in preserving it alive, and their cost represents, so to
speak, the expense of preserving the animal's body in repair. If another
sheep store up only one-tenth of its food, then the cost of its
maintenance may be said to be double that of the animal which retains
the larger proportion of its nutriment in the form of flesh. Of course
in both cases the value of the manure will to a great extent compensate
for the cost of the food expended in merely keeping the animal alive;
but that does not affect the proposition, that the less food expended by
an animal in carrying on its vital functions the more valuable is it as
a "meat-manufacturing machine." From the moment it is brought into the
world until it is "ripe" for the shambles, an animal should steadily
increase in weight: every week that it does not store up a portion of
its food in permanent increase is the loss of a week's food to the
feeder; for all the fodder consumed during that time by the animal is,
so to speak, devoted to its own private purposes. Sheep overcrowded
on pastures, milch cows on "short commons," calves kept on bulky
innutritious food, are all so many sources of positive loss to the
feeder--and as many proofs that he who aspires to be a successful
producer of meat, must, in one respect at least, be a devout believer
in the doctrine of Progressive Development.

_Cooking and Bruising Food._--The cooking, or the otherwise preparing,
of the food of the domesticated animals is a subject which until
recently was completely ignored by the vast majority of stock feeders.
It is now, however, beginning to