Fat-formers, or heat givers 232 Flesh-formers 55 Mineral matter 29 _Cost of Maintaining Animals._--The animal mechanism, which exhibits the least tendency to fatten, is the most costly to keep in repair, in relation to the work performed by it. If, for example, a sheep store up in its increase one-fifth of its food, then the remaining four-fifths are expended in preserving it alive, and their cost represents, so to speak, the expense of preserving the animal's body in repair. If another sheep store up only one-tenth of its food, then the cost of its maintenance may be said to be double that of the animal which retains the larger proportion of its nutriment in the form of flesh. Of course in both cases the value of the manure will to a great extent compensate for the cost of the food expended in merely keeping the animal alive; but that does not affect the proposition, that the less food expended by an animal in carrying on its vital functions the more valuable is it as a "meat-manufacturing machine." From the moment it is brought into the world until it is "ripe" for the shambles, an animal should steadily increase in weight: every week that it does not store up a portion of its food in permanent increase is the loss of a week's food to the feeder; for all the fodder consumed during that time by the animal is, so to speak, devoted to its own private purposes. Sheep overcrowded on pastures, milch cows on "short commons," calves kept on bulky innutritious food, are all so many sources of positive loss to the feeder--and as many proofs that he who aspires to be a successful producer of meat, must, in one respect at least, be a devout believer in the doctrine of Progressive Development. _Cooking and Bruising Food._--The cooking, or the otherwise preparing, of the food of the domesticated animals is a subject which until recently was completely ignored by the vast majority of stock feeders. It is now, however, beginning to attract a fair amount of attention; and no doubt ere long the best modes of treating the food of cattle will be discovered. As might be expected from our limited experience of the subject, there exists considerable difference of opinion relative to the proper method of cooking cattle food; and there are many very extensive feeders who object to the plan altogether, and contend that as the food of the inferior animals is naturally supplied to them in a raw condition, it would be quite unnatural to give it to them in a cooked state.