In his review of the results as set forth by table III, Professor Sanborn writes as follows:

"This trial was made largely to illustrate the folly of our unpardonable and indefensible practice of keeping hogs for eighteen months to obtain growth that may well be made in seven to eight months. The growth made in the first period would give a shoat weighing in seven months two hundred and forty pounds, including his birthweight. This would be got from feeding, on a basis of two per cent. for maintenance of only three hundred and forty-nine pounds more food than necessary to maintain existence. Now if a shoat is kept fourteen months or twice seven months, the maintenance food at two per cent. daily would be five hundred and four pounds for the extra seven months uselessly fed, or, in other words, maintenance rations are greater than the food of growth, and those of us, which is about all of us, who feed fourteen months, actually throw away more food in unnecessary maintenance than the actual food growth by 44.4 per cent. Regarding this food as middlings at fourteen dollars per ton, we have a value of three dollars and fifty-two cents thus lost in maintenance or for the 3,876,325 hogs of our State, $13,644,640."

The tables as arranged from the tabulated results of a large number of experiments by Professor Sanborn, are as follows:

Lots.

Weight, lbs.

Gain lbs.

Ate.

Period II.

Days fed.

Per cent.

eaten daily.

502

503
540

loss 6

560

4560

277

283

303

320

*521

3

1.97

.047

69. 56.6

28

Number of
animals.

Growth by Weight-Lots Weighing Under Fifty Pounds.

Growth by Weight-Lots Weighing Fifty to One Hundred Pounds.

Growths by Weight-Lots Weighing One Hundred to One Hundred

and Fifty Pounds.

Growths by Weight-Lots Weighing One Hundred and Fifty to Two

513

478

528

326

742 184 1,185

760 320

1,207

375

Prof. Sanborn also condenses into the following tables the results of his experiments as to the comparative feeding value of cornmeal and middlings:

A series of careful experiments at the Wisconsin University under the care of Professor Henry have enabled him to arrive at the following conclusions as to the effect of feeding large amounts of cornmeal and other feed rich in carbohydrates:

1. That there is an excessive development of fat not only on the outside of the muscles and beneath the skin, but also among the muscles.

2. That the muscles of the body fail to develop to their normal size, especially some of the most important ones, as those along the back. 3. That an abnormally small amount of hair and a thin skin is the result.

4. That while the brain, heart and lungs do not seem to change in weight, the spleen, liver and kidneys are unusually large.

5. That the amount of blood in the body is greatly reduced from the normal.

6. That the strength of the bones may be reduced one-half.

Such results are but the natural effect of the kind of food used and the manner of feeding. A failure to properly develop the muscles may be the result of a want of the proper amount of exercise as much as the character of the food. Pigs running in an open field, though fed entirely upon corn and food rich in carbohydrates, will in all probability develop a proper amount of muscle. When penned up without much exercise and fed heavily it is but natural that the organs which carry off the waste, as the spleen, liver and kidneys, will be developed to a degree which will in some measure correspond to the extra labor demanded of them.

The Germ Theory.

A careful microscopic examination of the blood and secretions of animals which have died from the effects of any contagious disease shows the presence in large numbers of certain peculiar living germs or organisma. It is further proven by the same mode that each disease is not only, represented by these living germs, but that each disease has its own specific germ, a germ which is peculiar to itself and which is not found in the secretions of animals suffering with any other disease. From this fact springs the theory that all diseases are due to the presence in the system in unusual quantities of certain germs, and that in fact the disease will not exist without the presence of its peculiar germ.

The general acceptance of this theory explains many outbreaks of contagious and infectious disease which have long been a puzzle to veterinary practitioners; many dark points are explained by it and the clue given to the prevention and cure of disease. From the acceptance of this theory we have all our results in vaccination, inoculation, &c., as shown by the celebrated French scientist Pastuer, and without the acceptance of this theory we are compelled to regard all of his results as visionary and erroneous.

To these germs the general name of bacteria has for the sake of distinction been given, and their examination has been the life-long work of a number of scientists, who, like Pastuer, have slowly worked out results from very limited and indefinite data. The opposition to the theory arises mainly among those who, admitting the presence of the bacteria, yet claim that they are the result and not the cause of the disease; that is, in other words, they follow and not precede the disease; that the disease must first exist and then they will be found.