56 



BOAED OF AGRICULTURE. 



farms, and a quantity to sell in the market, now the rule more 

 generally is for the farmer to go to market with the cash that 

 he has received from his tobacco or some other crop, and 

 purchase his one or five hundred bushels of grain to be used 

 upon his farm. But it is unquestionably a fact that in earlier 

 times, much less of this grain was fed than at the present 

 time, especially to neat stock and horses, as the opinion then 

 prevailed that the stock must be wintered upon the hay and 

 coarse fodder that the farm afforded, leaving the swine to con- 

 sume the corn. Now, however, all stock alike share the con- 

 sumption of corn in some shape, and though it is usually 

 shelled from the cob and ground, leaving the cob to be 

 burned, from analysis it appears that there is about the 

 same amount of organic matter in the cob that there is in the 

 grain ; about one-tenth part as much of the albumenoids, two- 

 thirds as much of the carbohydrates, and one-fifth as much 

 fat ; so that it would appear that it may yet become a matter 

 of economy to grind corn and cob together for feeding pur- 

 poses, especially when fattening is not the principal desider- 

 atum. 



As to the relative value of corn, taking good English hay 

 as a basis of comparison, assuming the hay to stand m 

 the scale at 100 and corn would stand at about 50 — that is, 

 fifty pounds of corn as ordinarily fed would be equivalent to 

 one hundred pounds of hay. In a lecture on cattle food, at 

 Cirencester Agricultural College, England, corn was placed 

 at 60 in comparison with hay at 100 ; but recent experiments 

 go to show that the value for feeding purposes of corn as well 

 as all other kinds of food is greatly enhanced by being cooked, 

 for reasons as stated in the results of experiments made by 

 MM. Raspail and Biot, of the French Academy of Sciences, 

 as follows : 



" 1. That the globules constituting meal, flour, and starch, 

 whether contained in grain or roots, are incapable of affording 

 any nourishment as animal food until they are broken. 



2. That no mechanical method of breaking or grinding is 

 more than partially efficient. 



3. That the most efficient way of breaking the globules is 



