But in regard to the craving of horses and cows kept within fences, enclosures and buildings, it is susceptible of proof, and has been proved many times, that it is an artificial and not a natural appetite. I have seen both horses and cows which will not eat salt if offered to them. The parents, when the supply was cut off, did not suffer perceptibly, and in a short time unlearned the habit. Neither the old ones nor their progeny will touch it now. I have not space here to enter into the question of the great injury done to the health, and consequently to the wholesomeness of the flesh of both improved and native or Texas varieties of cattle, by the pernicious practice of thrusting salt into their food, while preparing for, or on the way to, market, in order that the weight may be increased. It is worth the while of the State to institute an inquiry to see if this be not one of the provoking causes of the cattle diseases, and rinderpests of America and Europe. The tendency in the human mind—the more so with the untrained intellect—to find the class of facts it is seeking for, and to overlook or ignore the class which makes against its preconceived notion or desire, is always to be guarded against. It is a little singular that the advocates of the salt habit should have selected the one or two species of wild animals, and the two or three allied species or varieties under domestication which do or can be made to eat salt, while the vastly greater number of both classes of animals which do not and cannot be made to, are overlooked. True enough, a hungry cow will eat what is called “salt hay,” whereon the brine from the sea has crystallised, but invariably the same cow will turn from it to good well-cured meadow hay. Hunger is a terrible temptation, hence many of our animals (and the same is true of children) acquire their taste for salt by its mixture with their food; and a reprehensible practice has begun of mixing salt, or lime, with the new hay in the stack in order to “cure” it—that is, to prevent its decay by excess of moisture—on the theory that the hay is improved thereby. Surely no argument can properly be drawn from appetites so engendered. On the same principle might we sprinkle sawdust with a horse’s oats, because, if kept up, he will gnaw away the boards within reach. For this, by the way, there are good physiological reasons.