ir nostrils dilated, at each inspiration.
From a pig we only expect a grunt, but not a snore. These animals,
only twelve months and ten days old, were marked '_improved_ Chilton
breed.' They, with their fellows just mentioned, of eleven months and
twenty-three days, had early come to grief. Three pigs of the black
breed were in a similar state, at seven months three weeks and five
days, yet such animals 'the judges highly commended.'"

Dr. Brinton denies the accuracy of several of Mr. Gant's statements
relative to the structural changes in the muscles of obese animals;
but I do not think that he has succeeded in disproving the principal
assertions made by the latter.

There is conclusive evidence to prove that one of the effects of the
present mode of fattening beasts is disease of the internal organs
of the animals; but it is by no means certain that the flesh of those
diseased animals is as unwholesome food as some writers assert it to
be. The flesh of an over-fattened animal differs from that of a lean, or
moderately fat one, in containing an exceedingly high proportion of fat;
but it has not been proved that the fat of prize animals differs from
the fat of lean kine, or that it is less wholesome or nutritious. Be the
flesh of those exceedingly fat animals unwholesome or not, there are
thousands, ay, millions of persons, to whom its greasy quality renders
it peculiarly acceptable; and as for those who dislike fat--they do
not usually invest their money in the flesh of prize sheep or oxen.
At the same time, it must not be understood that all, or even a large
proportion of fully matured stock is in a diseased state; though in most
of them the vital and muscular powers are undoubtedly exceedingly low.

There is no doubt but that sheep and oxen, from three to five years old,
moderately fat, and fairly exercising their locomotive powers, furnish
the most savory, and, perhaps, the most nutritious meat: but if such
were the only kind of meat in demand, it may be fairly doubted that the
supply would be equal to it. The produce of meat in these countries has
been rapidly increasing for many years past; and the weight of meat
annually supplied from a given area of land is now from 80 to 100 per
cent. greater than it furnished thirty or forty years ago. It is chiefly
by means of the so-called forcing system that the produce of meat has
been so considerably increased. If this system were abandoned, the
production would be grea