FARMERS' INSTITUTES. 63 



would like. In such cases he may resort to the class of drugs known as condi- 

 ments, such as salt, pepper, garlic, onions and vinegar; bat in all cases these 

 matters should be used in small quantities and with caution, A variety of food 

 should be at hand, if possible, and the animal's caprices of appetite humored. 

 A careful eye should be kept upon each animal. If it is found that some of 

 the herd or flock refuse their food, but still have a bright eye, and continue to 

 ruminate, the food should be changed and a smaller ration given for a time. 

 If the eye is dull and rumination suspended, there is some derangement of the 

 system which perhaps may be corrected by giving moist or green food; and if 

 the animal has been fed on dry fodder it may bo necessary to give a dose of 

 epsom salts, — 1 lb. for an ox, and 3 oz. to | ib. for a sheep. The disease most liable 

 to trouble the farmer in feeding cattle or sheep for the butcher is impaction of 

 the third stomach, and is most likely to result from the use of dry food, and 

 late in the feeding season. As the animals are becoming well loaded with fat, 

 and the time for sale or shipment draws near, green food of some kind should 

 be added to the daily ration ; and if a little ground oil-cake can be given it 

 will be found a great help, both on account of its richness in fat producing 

 substances and the stimulating and loosening effect it has on the digestive sys- 

 tem of the animals. We often find on the farm quantities of hay or corn 

 stalks that have been damaged by heating and moulding; such matters should 

 be fed with caution to any animals, and more particularly to those in the later 

 stages of fattening; for aside from the possibility that they may cause difficulty 

 in the digestive system, they very readily act upon the urinary system, and 

 often with serious or even fatal effect. Animals that are being fattened should 

 be housed in a warm and moist rather than in a cool and dry atmosphere, as 

 they are found to take on fat better in the former conditions than in the latter. 

 The stables should be dark and the animals kept quiet as possible. Noisy and 

 restless members should be drafted from the herd before the feeding season 

 commences; such animals never do well themselves and are a source of annoy- 

 ance to their neighbors in the stable. In this chiss of animals the farmer does 

 not want to develop the bones and muscles to a great extent, and he should 

 keep them in health by means of an intelligent regulation of the ration of 

 food to the animal's wants, combined with thorough ventilation and drainasre. 

 Thus far we have assumed that all animals were to receive better shelter than 

 is to be found on the lee side of a grove, a straw stack, or a barn. The ques- 

 tion of housing animals during the winter has been discussed and rcdiscussed 

 during the past year by our agricultural press, but I have never seen the sys- 

 tem of leaving animals unhoused defended, except on the grounds of present 

 expediency. 



Intelligent writers upon the subject do not attempt to deny that there is 

 waste of food when animals are fed out of doors and exposed to the winter's 

 cold, but argue in this way, viz. : " We can furnish the food necessary to sup- 

 ply th>is waste easier and cheaper than we could put up suitable shelter for our 

 cattle." Such mai/ be the case, but surely we may be pardoned if, after form- 

 ing something of an idea of the waste of food in the animal's body when 

 exposd to such weather, as we have reason to believe often exists on the Illinois 

 prairies, we entertain serious doubts of the system being economical, even as a 

 present or temijorary expedieid. I think that if we could measure the waste of 

 food there is in feeding sixty or one hundred head of steers in the open air, 

 exposing them to the cold winds and storms of a prairie winter, we should find 

 that the food so wasted would keep and fatten a goodly number of cattle, 

 which, if sold, would go a long way towards paying the interest on the capital 



