The Farmer. Distribution of Fat in the Bodies of Animals. Part II. Professor F. H. Storer.

Waikato Times, Volume XXII, Issue 1872, 5 July 1884, Page 2 (Supplement)

The Farmer. Distribution of Fat in the Bodies of Animals. Part 11. Professor F. H. Storer.

Okb of the most experienced persons with whom I have conversed, was perfectly sure, at least as regards beef and mutton, that tht internal " gat-fat " is first deposited, then the fat under the skin, and last oi all the " peppei and salt," or intermuscular fat. He was equally positive that whenever it happens that fat is wasted from the body through fatigue or sickness, the loose fat disappears first, and the marbling fat last of all. Physicians tell a somewhat similar story. Ob Bervation teaches them that in the human subject, the outside fat wastes sooner than the inter-muecular fat, and it is known thai when the fat of the body gradually dis appears in old age, it passes from the external parts, leaving them lean and flaccid, while the last which remains is the very substance of the internal organs; whence it might be argued that the marbling fat, made from albumenoids in the cells, tends to stay in the places where it was formed, and that it teems to be less mobile than the fat that has come from the blood, and which readily returns to blood on occasion, as was just now said. In illustration of this point, the experience of those farmers who formerly fattened animals upon pulse, is important. According to Leuchs, it was at one time customary in Germany to feed vetches (the seeds) by preference to suoh cattle as were intended to be sold in distant markets, for the reason that animals thus fattened were less liable than any others to shrink from travel. It was found that while the fat of oxen that had been fed upon more delicate foods was, so to say, fugitive, in that it wasted away well-nigh completely when the animals were driven long dibtances, the firm fat produced by vetches, peas, and other legumes remained upon the bodies of the animals even after long journeys. It seems hardly probable, however, that this permanence of the fat from legumes can have depended solely upon the place of its deposition. Doubtless the character of the suet, ac cordingly as it is " hard "or " soft " will have considerable influence on the rapidity of its disappearance, and it is a fact of familial observation that the consistency of the fat in animals is largely dependent upon the quality of their food. There is a story that an old Philadelphia nurse once remarked, upon this point, " Some fats is fast and some is fickle, but the fat from cod-oil is easy squandered." There can be, of course, no question that the effect of marbling is often conspicuous at the close of long continued periods of fattening, and especially when the animate aie " forced " from early youth. A good idea of this so called condition of " ripeness " may be got from the results of some experiments of Henneberg, on feeding wethers two and three-quarter-year-olds. After the animals had been slaughtered, pains were taken to collect, by means of appi opiate solvents, and to weigh all the fat that had accumulated in the merchantable flesh as the animals passed from the " store " condition to that of "fat" and " hog-fat." The weights of actual lean flesh (free from fat) obtained from the several lots of animals were in the proportion of 100, 99, and 102, and the similarity of these lesulta is not to be wondered at in view of the well known fact that the " fattening " of adult animals depends in no wise upon the production oijksh. The increased weight of the fattened animal is due to, fat actually stored up in or upon him, and in the case now in question Henneberg found that the proportion of fat in the flesh of the animals amounted to 100, 287, ami 339 in the three conditions, respectively, no account being taken of the kidney and caul fat which was naturally much larger in the fattened animals than in the stores. As bearing upon this subject, an old estimate of Mr. Horsefall is worth citing, though it probably has no special claim to be accounted accurate. When fattening cattle in stalls he computed the gain of fat per week to consist on the average of three pounds loose fat or tallow, one pound suet or fat in the loin, and seven pounds fat mixed with meat and sold as beef. He adds, " Nor do I think this an over-estimate, as it will be admitted that the gain of carcass fat, independent of the loose fat or tallow, is greater than that of flesh. The whole of the exterior of the carcass immediately under the skin is covered with a layer of fat, which, when the beast is lean scarcely exceeds one-eighth to one-quaiter inch in thickness, whilbt in fattening it increases frequently to one-and-a-half inch, i.e. six-fold or upwards. The fatty portions throughout increase also, and the flesh becomes intermixed with fat, and assumes what ia termed the mottled appeal ance which is the characteristic of beef of prime quality." It should here be said that in spito of the common impression to the contrary, I have found some practical men, especially among those who have had a varied experience in fattening hogs upon different kinds of foods who dispute the notion that marbled meat can be obtained only at the close of the fat'enung process. They hold that with appiopiiate feeding, it is possible to deposit muscular fat without pushing the fattening process to extremities. Their idea has manifestly something in common with the modern practice of fattening very young animals, as was said long ago in Morton's Cyclopaxlia of Agriculture, the flesh of very young beef and mutton may be marbled, the result appearing to depend on constitutional tendency, or on longcontinued feeding upon food that contains abundantly the elements for forming fat, rather than on any influence of maturity of age. It ia notorious, for that matter, that there is some risk in feeding young animals too freely, especially pigs, leit an actual " fatty degeneration" of their flesh be induced. It seems not improbable that intelligent observation of the carcasses of many animals that have been fed on different kinds of food, each of tolerably well-known chemical composition, would show that the conflict of opinion previously recorded, may depend primarily on differences of food which were not noticed or even suspected by the older observers. It is not unreasonable to suppose, for instance, that statements such as the one credited tht other day to Jennings, may be true of animals that have been fed chiefly on fatty food, or on carbohydrates, while on the other hand the statement of Morton may be tiue in its turn of foods rich in albumenoid matters. NQrnerous new observations need to be made by persons favorably situated, to test how much of truth there may be in this hypothesis. If thert is any truth in the idea, we need to be informed practically both as to its scope and its limitations. It would be an undoubted gain for agriculture, and for the community at large, if means could be discovered of obtaining marbled flesh without expending so much time and fodder as are now required in the costly ripening process which has come to ub from the English feeders. To quote from the English physiologist, Foster, " the fata taken as food pass, with comparatively little change, from the alimentary canal into the blood, either directly, or ' through the intermediate passage of the chyle. We might infer from tms mat an excess of fat thus entering the blood would naturally be stored up in the available adipose tissue, without any furthei change." Tne common observation that oily foods, such as oil-cake, when fed to hogs, yield soft fat, naturally suggests the thought that the oil of the food has been carried by the blood and deposited in the fat cell, with comparatively little change of composition. According io Morton's Cyclopaadia, oil-cake is often fed out in England to animals fattening in pastures, for the double puipose of giving to the animal that peculiar condition of quality which is felt on handling and is deemed to be bo desirable, and of enabling the land to carry more stock. It is anyway a matter of famil iar observation that a cushion of fat does form on the bodies of animals which are fed upon fodders rich in fat, and it is a not unnatural inference that a good part of the fat of the food h*B passed from the intestines to the places where it is deposited. In this' view oi the matter, the chief deposits of fat would be likely to ocour in regions near the intestines, put o! which the fat- of tbe food has passed

into the blood ; and, in general, in those parts of the body to which the current of blood has readiest aocess, after the fat of digestion has been received by it; as is well known, branches of the arteries and veins do run through the masses of fat that are contained in tha sooalled adipose membrane. So, too, in the new-born infant, fat ia found beneath the skin whither it has been brought by the blood flowing from the parent, while in young animals, in general, there is but little fat in the muscular tissue because bo much of this matenal is needed for the purposes of life and grow th that it is commonly used up as fast as it is formed.