Whatever may be true of wild animals, it is generally agreed, in this country at least, that domestic animals, at least some domestic animals, require salt. Salt for these animals is taken for granted.

Man lived on the earth for ages before he acquired the salt-eating habit. Livestock were introduced to salt eating by man and did not bring the practice with them from their wild state. It is probable, in view of the comparative scarcity of salt until recent times and in view of its high cost, that is was long after man developed the salt eating habit before he introduced the practice to his livestock. Untold billions of men and animals have been born on this earth, lived their regular life cycles, and passed away without ever having tasted salt once in their life times.

It is not probable that when the first tribe began the use of salt, the people at the same time began to feed salt to their stock, if, indeed, at that time, they had domesticated any animals. Its use as a "food" for stock probably began much later and, no doubt, spread even slower than its use by man. We know that, even now, not all animals on the farm and ranch are given salt. We know, moreover, that there is a common superstition among farmers that salt is fatal to certain animals--hogs and chicken, for example.

Speaking of domestic animals Mr. Colburn wrote: "It is a common notion that salt is necessary to the well-being, if not the preservation, of horses and horned cattle. It is, I am persuaded, a great mistake. In the first place, although it is undoubtedly true that some domestic cattle will eat salt, and follow impatiently to get it, it is not true of wild cattle. I am assured by many of the great herders in Texas, Colorado and California, that the native cattle are not fed salt, never see it, and will not eat it if offered. Of course it is a transparent absurdity that salt could be hauled hundreds of miles to feed these great inland herds; and it is not done as is supposed."

In the early days of the cattle industry, which had its beginning in Texas, and spread from there throughout the west, it is true that salt was not hauled to the cattle and horses. With the coming of the railroads, many ranchmen do supply salt for their cattle and stock, not from any need for it on the part of the cattle, but simply because popular superstition holds that they require it. No evil effects have been observed to result in cattle deprived of its use.

In a letter dated March 28, 1864, Mr. G. H. Ambrose, of Lexington, Mo., wrote to the Herald of Health as follows: "I have raised stock for fourteen years past without salt, and with satisfactory results. I know of several tribes of Indians in Oregon who occupy the country between the Rocky Mountains and the Coast Range, who have raised extensive herds of fine fat cattle as one would wish to look at, without the use of salt. Reared in that manner, stock will not use it, which proves conclusively that it is an artificial and morbid appetite. Anyone who has lived in Oregon in its early settlement, can bear testimony to the fact that stock was almost universally raised without salt. I regard the experiment of stock raising in Oregon as conclusive and satisfactory. I have seen thousands of head of stock raised in that country without salt, and when grown up they would not use it, and were as large, thrifty, fat and sleek as any like number of stock to be found anywhere. I have not written this for publication, but to call your attention to the fact that stock do quite as well if not better without the use of salt, at least my experience so teaches me; and I have tested it in Oregon for seven years and in this state the same length of time, and all the time owning several hundred head of cattle."

At my father's dairy, although the milk cows were given salt regularly in their diet, the calves were never given salt, nor were the dry cows in the pasture. The horses and mules were given salt but no salt was fed to the chickens and hogs. Our ducks and guineas were never given salt. As a boy I had a flock of pigeons which were never fed salt. We had a large pasture over which our animals grazed at will, but there were no "salt licks" thereon. The wild life on the pasture and on the wooded section did not get salt. There were no "salt licks" known to farmers and hunters in that whole region of the state. This was in North Texas. My Health School is in South Texas. I am unable to learn of a salt-lick anywhere in this region. The squirrels and rabbits here on the Health School grounds do not get salt. Neither do the quail, doves, cardinals, mocking birds, sparrows, etc., that abound here.

About 1914 I made my first experiment of withholding salt from a cow. I placed her with my father's dairy herd, every member of which was given salt regularly in her food. Every cow received salt except mine. Otherwise her feeding and care was the same as that received by the other cows. She did not lose health, there was no falling off in milk production and she developed none of the symptoms of "salt hunger" popularly supposed to result from lack of salt.

At the Health School a stallion and a mare were kept for more than three years without salt with no evidences of "salt hunger" or failing health. Indeed, they both maintained splendid health and great vigor. The little stallion, the first offspring of the mare, was reared from before birth until nearly three years old without salt. Beautifully developed, a fine glossy coat of hair, as full of life as colts proverbially are, and in as fine condition as any animal can possibly be, the playful little fellow never knew what it was to be even slightly ill.

The finest oxen raised in Great Britain are not given salt. The enormous herds of cattle of the West are not given salt. Many have raised animals without salt as an experiment. Dr. Kellogg raised deer without salt and they refused to eat it.

On the other hand, cattle have to be taught to eat salt. It is put in their food, sprinkled on hay, after being dissolved in water, etc., until they acquire the salt eating habit. Often, when a man possesses but one or a few cows, he sprinkles the salt on their backs, where it works down through the hair and causes the cows to lick it off. In this way they acquire the habit. Cattle with the salt eating habit are like humans with the same habit--they like salt and will eat it if offered. The writer knows, however, from extended experience and observation, that cattle do not instinctively turn to salt under any condition, but must be taught its use.

Otto Carque says: "Extensive experiments made in Germany with the horses of ten squadrons of cavalry and two batteries of artillery, during two years, showed that the animals, if they had their choice, preferred the unsalted fodder. If half an ounce of salt was added to their daily rations, they ate them without difficulty, but if an ounce was given they showed apparent disgust. In every instance the use of salt was injurious rather than beneficial and did not increase the strength of the animals. With cows, a very small amount of salt increases the quantity of milk, but deteriorates the quality."

And thus the supposed instinctive use of salt is effectually disposed of. The supposed need for salt is seen to be not real. Salt is not the one exception to the rule, that we cannot take mineral elements into our body in their crude state and make use of them.

Farmers and dairymen think that feeding salt to cows causes them to drink more water and, as a consequence, produce more milk. If this were true, the milk would be watery. But careful experiments by one of the largest dairying industries in the country have shown this to be false. They thus confirmed by large scale experiment, what I found in a limited test.

Although salt is thought to be necessary to some domestic animals, it is not thought to be essential to all. It is commonly considered to be fatal to hogs, pigeons, chickens, birds and dogs. We are told of these animals that excrete considerable nitrogen, that, if they are fed salt in small quantities they soon die and that autopsies of these animals reveal the liver and kidneys to be studded with uric acid concretions. (Milo Hastings found, by experiments on chickens, that salt does not kill them).

Only within recent years have the manufacturers of prepared foods for poultry begun to add salt to their abominable concoctions. Dogs were formerly not given salt, it not being supposed that meat-eating animals require salt, but salt is now added to the prepared dog food with which dog fanciers are killing their dogs.

It is asserted that salt-fed cattle will fatten faster than those not so fed. This may be true, at least the experiments of Boussingault point to the fact that this is true for a time. His trial showed that ten cattle, salted and fed alike in other respects, gained in weight, some forty pounds in about one-hundred days, over ten unsalted cattle, and that, otherwise, both classes were equally good in health at the end of this period. The experiment made to determine the relation of salt eating to milk production did not reveal any tendency of the salt-fed cows to take on fat faster than the cows that did not get salt. In the case of healthy human beings, although, as far as we know, no such experiment has ever been conducted, one thing is certain, everyone who indulges in salt does not gain weight. Many of them lose weight.

Again, it should be borne in mind, that, if it were an actual gain in healthy flesh, due to temporary stimulation of the digestive organs of the cattle, one hundred days would hardly be a sufficient length of time in which to show the real and lasting effects of salt eating. But it was no gain in healthy tissue--in muscles, in health, in power. Rather it was a gain in fat. And it is a well-known fact that fat is a disease and not a desirable acquisition. We do not want to produce fatty degeneration.