LONDON
CASSELL, PETTER, AND GALPIN, BELLE SAUVAGE WORKS,
LUDGATE HILL, E. C.

THE FOLLOWING PAGES ARE
Dedicated
TO

THE RIGHT HONORABLE
THE LORD TALBOT DE MALAHIDE, F.R.S.,
_President of the Royal Irish Academy, &c. &c. &c._,

ONE OF THE MOST ENLIGHTENED AND LIBERAL PROMOTERS
OF AGRICULTURAL IMPROVEMENTS.

THE AUTHOR IS UNDER MANY OBLIGATIONS TO HIS LORDSHIP, FOR
WHICH HE CAN MAKE NO RETURN SAVE THIS PUBLIC ACKNOWLEDGMENT
OF HIS INDEBTEDNESS.

PREFACE.

Some papers on the Chemistry of Food, read before the Royal Agricultural
Society of Ireland and the Athy Farmers' Club, and a few articles on the
Management of Live Stock, published in the _Weekly Agricultural Review_,
constitute the basis of this Work. It describes the nature of the food
used by the domesticated animals, explains the composition of the animal
tissues, and treats generally upon the important subject of nutrition.
The most recent analyses of all the kinds of food usually consumed by
the animals of the farm are fully stated; and the nutritive values of
those substances are in most instances given. Some information is
afforded relative to the breeds and breeding of live stock; and a
division of the Work is wholly devoted to the consideration of the
economic production of "meat, milk, and butter."

Within the last twenty years the processes of chemical analysis have
been so much improved, that the composition of organic bodies is now
determined with great accuracy. The analyses of foods made from twenty
to fifty years ago, possess now but little value. In this Work the
analyses of vegetables quoted are chiefly those recently performed by the
distinguished Scotch chemist, Dr. Thomas Anderson, and by Dr. Voelcker.
The Author believes that in no other Work of moderate size are there so
many analyses of food substances given, and ventures to hope that the
success of this Work may fully justify the belief that a "handy" book
containing such information as that above mentioned, is much required
by stock feeders.

_102, Lower Baggot Street, Dublin_,
April, 1868.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

PAGE

INTRODUCTION: History of Agriculture--Agricultural Statistics--Imports
of Live Stock

1

PART I. ON THE GROWTH AND COMPOSITION OF ANIMALS.

SECTION I. ANIMAL AND VEGETA