AS FOOD FOR CATTLE AND SHEEP. 325 



that cattle are dependent entirely on these watery roots for 

 their food. The system of giving them an unlimited supply of 

 them still lingers in some localities, but everywhere they get 

 along with them a daily allowance of straw, if not also of some 

 other dry food. The only instances of cattle being fed ex- 

 clusively on turnips which have come under our observation 

 are the few cases where calves are folded on the turnip-fields 

 along with sheep, and this is generally resorted to in conse- 

 quence of deficient accommodation at the farm steading. But 

 in all the great sheep- feeding districts of North Britain, the 

 spectacle of sheep being fed on nothing but cold watery roots is 

 a very common one. Many farmers wlio have become 

 tlioroughly convinced that it is unwise, extravagant, and even 

 wasteful to give cattle an unlimited allowance of a root containing 

 the very large proportion of 90 per cent, of water, continue to 

 follow the practice of feeding sheep on nothing but turnips. In 

 fact, it seems to be taken for granted that during the winter 

 months the diets of cattle and sheep should differ from each other 

 to this extent at least, that the former ought to get a consider- 

 able quantity of dry fodder along with their roots, but that the 

 same reasons do not exist for giving sheep a similar proportion 

 of such dry herbage. The same idea, in a modified form, is 

 acted on to a much wider extent by sheep feeders who give 

 their flocks dry concentrated feeding stuffs sucli as oats, peas, 

 and cake when they are folded upon turnips, but who refrain 

 from supplying them with any dry food of a bulky character. 

 In short, the treatment they are subjected to in this respect 

 seems to proceed on the tacit assumption that there is sorae- 

 tliing so different in their respective constitutions, or outward 

 circumstances, as to justify, if not positively to necessitate, 

 this marked diversity in the diets on which cattle and sheep 

 are fed. 



AVe believe that there is more room for a revolution, so far as 

 Scotland is concerned, in the too common system of feeding 

 sheep either wholly or almost entirely upon turnips, than there 

 is fur a modification in the fjuantity of roots allowed to cattle. 

 In the case of the latter class of stock the i»lan of restricthig to 

 a considerable decree tlie allowance of roots has been steadilv 

 gaining ground for many years, whereas the system of giving 

 sheep nothing but watery bulbs is well-nigh as ])revalent as ever. 

 As the assumption we have s])oken of lies at the br)ltoni of this 

 practice, we clialhMige it at the out^^et, and undertake to show 

 that it is an erroneous one. There is, it is true, a dilference in 

 tlie physical structure of cattle and sheep to this extent, that, as 

 shown by Mr Lawes in a lecture delivered u number of years 

 ago before the I)ublin Society, for every 100 ll>s. weight, the ox 

 has in lbs. stomach and only L'.-; lbs. of intestines; and the 



