This should be regulated by a variety of considerations. The young which may be destined for maturity, should be supplied with milk from the dam until weaning-time. No food can be substituted for the well-filled udder of the parent, which is so safe, healthful, and nutritious. If from any cause there is deficiency or total privation, it must be made up by that kind of food, meal-gruel, &c., which, in its composition, approaches nearest in quality to the milk. At a more advanced age, or the time for weaning, grass, hay, roots, or grain, may be substituted, in quantities sufficient to maintain a steady but _not a forced growth_. Stuffing can only be tolerated in animals which are speedily destined for the slaughter. Alternately improving and falling back, is injurious to all stock. _An animal should never be fat but once._ Especially is high feeding bad for breeding animals. Much as starving is to be deprecated, the prejudicial effects of repletion are still greater. The calf or lamb intended for the butcher, may be pushed forward with all possible rapidity. Horses or colts should never exceed a good working or breeding condition. Purposes fulfilled by different Kinds of Food. The objects designed to be answered by food, are to a certain extent the same. All food is intended to meet the demands of respiration and nutrition, and fattening to a greater or less degree. But some are better suited to one object than others, and it is for the intelligent farmer to select such as will most effectually accomplish his particular purposes. The very young animal requires large quantities of the phosphate of lime for the formation of bone; and this is yielded in the milk in larger proportions than from any other food. The growing animal wants bone, muscle, and a certain amount of fat, and these are procured from the grasses, roots, and grain; from the former when fed alone, and from the two latter when mixed with hay or grass. Horses, cattle, and sheep need hay to qualify the too watery nature of the roots, and the too condensed nutritiveness of the grain. Animals that are preparing for the shambles, require vegetable oils or fat, starch, sugar, or gum. The first is contained in great abundance in flax and cotton-seed, the sun-flower, and many other of the mucilaginous seeds. Indian corn is the most fattening grain. The potato contains the greatest proportion of starch, and the sugar-beet has large quantities of sugar, and both consequently are good for stall-feeding. The ripe sugar-cane is perhaps the most fattening of vegetables, if we except the oily seeds and grain. The Swedes turnip is a good food to commence with fattening cattle and sheep; but where great ripeness in animals is desired, they should be followed with beets, carrots or potatoes, and grain.