Suppose an animal to be full grown. Take a full grown man. All that he eats as food is intended merely to renovate or replenish his system, to restore that which is daily removed from every part of his body by natural causes. In the full grown state, every thing that enters the body must come out of the body in one form or another. The first part of the food that escapes is that portion of its carbon that passes off from the lungs during respiration. This quantity varies in different individuals—chiefly according to the quantity of exercise they take. From 5 to 9 ounces a day is the average quantity, though in periods of violent bodily exertion 13 to 15 ounces of carbon are breathed out in the form of carbonic acid.
Suppose a man to eat a pound and a half of bread and a pound of beef in 24 hours, and that he gives off by respiration 8 ounces of carbon (3500 grains) during the same time. Then he has
| Carbon. | Nitrogen. | |||
| Taken, in his food, | about | 4500 | grains, and | 500 grs. while |
| He has given off in |  | 3500 | and little | or no nitrogen, |
| respiration, | ||||
| Leaving to be converted |  | 1000 | grs. and | 500 grs. |
| into food, or to | ||||
| be rejected, | ||||
Our two conclusions, therefore, are clear. The vegetable food, by respiration, is freed from a large portion of its carbon, which is discharged into the air,—nearly the whole of the nitrogen remaining behind. In the food consumed the carbon was to the nitrogen as 9 to 1; in that which remains, after respiration has done its work, the carbon is to the nitrogen in the proportion of only 2 to 1.
It is out of this residue, rich in nitrogen, that the several parts of animal bodies are built up. Hence the reason why they can be formed from food poor in nitrogen, and yet be themselves rich in the same element.
It is this same residue also which, after it has performed its functions within the body, is discharged again in the form of solid and liquid excretions. Hence the greater richness in nitrogen,—the greater fertilizing power of the dung of animals than of the food on which they live.
Two other remarks I shall add for the benefit of the practical man.
1. The manure of the cow, taking it mixed, is not so rich in nitrogen as that of man,—because the cow in the stall, large though it be, and great the bulk of food it consumes, does not give off much more carbon by respiration than an active full grown man. Hence the proportion of carbon in the excretions of this animal is greater than in those of man. The dry manure is richer than the dry food, weight for weight, but not in the same proportion as if the cow respired a quantity of carbon more nearly corresponding to its bulk, when compared with the weight of carbon thrown off from the lungs of man.
2. Since the parts of animals—their blood, muscles, tendons, and the gelatinous portion of the bones—contain much nitrogen, young beasts which are growing, must appropriate to their own use, and work up into flesh and bone, a portion of the nitrogen contained in the non-respired part of their food. But the more they thus appropriate, the less will pass off into the fold-yard; and hence it is natural to suppose that the manure, either liquid or solid, which is prepared where many growing cattle are fed, will not be so rich as that which is yielded by full grown animals. I am not aware how far this deterioration has been observed in practice, but it may with some degree of certainty be expected to take place,—unless by giving a richer food to the young cattle, the difference to the farm-yard be made up.[18]