Rensselaer Union, Volume 9, Number 14, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 December 1876 — Fattening Cattle. [ARTICLE]

Fattening Cattle.

The Journal of Chemistry, in discussing foe question from a scientific standpoint, says that poor animals consist of about two-thirds water, while fat ones only tone-half, in the total weight, and compares poor animals to bog meadows. It adds that when the fattening process begins, water commences to disappear, and fat or suet takes its place; ana the increase in bulk during the process is largely of adipose matter. It is a curious circumstance that, during the fattening, the proteids, or nitrogenous compounds, increase only about seven per cent., and the bone qaateriul, or inorganic substance, only one and a half per cent. ' The cost to a fanner of fattening an ox is much greater at the close of foe process than at the commencement; that is, increase in bulk or dry weight at that period is much more costly. . If it costs three cents a pound for bulk for the first month after a poor animal is put in the fattening stall, it will cost five cents foe last month. If, then, a farmer consults his mopey interests, he will not carry foe increase in fat beyond a certain" point, provided he can turn his partially fattened animals to fair advantage. Farmers have, perhaps, learned this fact from experience and observation, and hence comparatively lean beef abounds in our. markets. While this is of advantage to the fanner, it is very disadvantageous to consumers of foe bet f, for the flesh of a fat animal in every case is much richer in fixed, nourishing material than that of the lean, and it is never good economy to purchase lean beef. It is better to purchase the poorest part of a fat animal than the best of a lean one. The best part of a fat ox (the loin) contains from twenty-one to twenty-eight per cent, more fixed material than’the corresponding piece in a lean one, and curiously enough the worst piece in foe lean animal (foe neck) is the richest in nourishing material. The flesh of foe neck improves very little in fattening, hence, economy considered, it is foe best portion to purchase, as its value is in a measure a fixed one.— N. Y. Observer. —Two Pittsburghers have just died from handling a mattress from a house where there bad been smaU-pex.