act, has been
clearly proved by the results of an investigation[3] undertaken a few
years ago by Messrs. Lawes and Gilbert--an investigation which I cannot
avoid characterising as one of the most laborious and apparently
trustworthy on record. The mere statement of the results of this inquiry
occupies 187 pages of one of the huge volumes of the Transactions of the
Royal Society--a fact which best indicates the immensity of the labour
which these gentlemen imposed upon themselves, and which, independently
of their other and numerous contributions to scientific agriculture,
entitles their names to most honourable mention in the annals of
science.

I shall now briefly advert to a few of the more important facts
established by Lawes and Gilbert. From a large number of oxen, sheep,
and pigs, on which feeding experiments were being conducted, ten
individuals were selected. These were, a fat calf, a half-fat ox, a
moderately fat ox, a fat lamb, a store sheep, a half-fat old sheep, a
fat sheep, a very fat sheep, a store pig, and a fat pig. These animals
were killed, and the different organs and parts of their bodies were
separately weighed and analysed. The results were, that, with the
exception of the calf, all the animals contained, respectively, more fat
than lean. The fat ox and the fat lamb contained each three times as
much fat as lean flesh, and the proportion of the fatty matters to the
nitrogenous constituents of the carcass of the very fat sheep was as 4
to 1. In the pig the fat greatly preponderated over the lean; the store
pig containing three times as much, and the fat pig five times as much
fat as lean.

That part of the animal which is consumed as food by man, is termed the
_carcass_ by the butcher, and contains by far the greater portion of
the fat of the animal. The _offal_, in the language of the butcher,
constitutes those parts which are not commonly consumed as human food,
at least by the well-to-do classes. In calves, oxen, lambs, and sheep,
the offal embraces the skin, the feet, and the head, and all the
internal organs, excepting the kidneys and their fatty envelope. The
offal of the pig is made up of all the internal organs, excepting the
kidneys and kidney fat. It is the relative proportion of fat in the
carcasses analysed by Lawes and Gilbert that I have stated; but as the
nitrogenous matters occur in greatest quantity in the offal, it is
necessary that the relative proportions of the constituents of