Excerpt from Physiology at the Farm: In Aid of Rearing and Feeding the Live Stock

To have some acquaintance with the physiology of nutrition, and of the intimate connection between the condition of his stock and the several kinds of food thereby consumed, cannot but materially assist him in his daily tasks, and save him from a multitude of errors.

The work now offered to him is designed to'bring such a knowledge within his reach.

It is a concise survey of the actions of nutrition and of the chemistry of food with reference to the animals subservient to agriculture, to which is added a still briefer notice of some other functions concerned in organic life.

It consists of Three Parts: in the First Part, a de tailed account of the organs of nutrition and their mode of action in the horse, the ox, the sheep, the pig, the dog, and in the chief kinds of poultry, is exhibited, amply sufficient to enable the agriculturist to judge for himself in many important questions that arise daily in the farm.

The Second Part contains a somewhat minute detail of the chemistry of food in the animals referred to in the First Part, and of the particular nutritive value, as far as that is as yet ascertained, of each article, in order to put into the hands of farmers the means of becoming their own advisers in respect to the choice of food for the several kinds of animals when new Circumstances present themselves.

In passing under review the articles derived from the vegetable kingdom that afford nutritive material, it was found impossible to draw any broad line of distinction between those that must remain fit exclusively for human food and those that hereafter may possibly aug ment the supply of nutriment to the animals of the farm hence, while the chief attention is paid to articles in daily use, all the plants known to contain esculent matter, as far as space would permit, are cursorily noticed, without any attempt to estimate the probability of this or that being added in future to the list of forage plants.

In the Third Part an attempt has been made to show the theoretical grounds on which the agriculturist must proceed in determining, from his knowledge of preceding facts in physiology and chemistry, the kind and amount of diet that will more or less probably be necessary when special circumstances arise, as well as to satisfy himself how far there is a harmony between established usages of the farm in respect to animals and the precepts of physiological and chemical science. The calculations introduced into this Part are only correct in so far as the chemical analysis of the several articles concerned is already complete. The plan exhibited will suffice, how ever. To give exact results in proportion as the analyses become more perfect.

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