238 ANNUAL REPORT OF NEW-YORK 



" In this dairy, of the small dimension I have described, my pro- 

 duce of butter reaches, at times, 60 to 70 lbs per week. Though 

 the size may appear inconveniently small, yet I beg to remark on 

 the greater facility of regulating the temperature of a small in 

 comparison with a large dairy. This diflQ.culty will be found 

 greater in summer than in winter, as it is far easier to heighten 

 than depress the temperature. 



" I have cooked or steamed my food for several years. It will 

 be observed that I blend bean straw, bran and malt combs, as fla- 

 voring materials, with oat and other straw and rape cake. The 

 effect of steaming is to volatilise the essential oils, in which the • 

 flavor resides, and diff'use them through the mess. The odor 

 arising from it resembles that observed from the process of malt- 

 ing. This imparts relish to the mess, and induces the cattle 

 to eat it greedily; in addition to which I am disposed to 

 think that it renders the food more easy of digestion and assimi- 

 lation. I use this process with advantage for fattening when I 

 am deficient in roots. With the same mixed straw and oat shells, 

 3 to 4 lbs. each of rape cake, aud half a pound of linseed oil, 

 but without roots, I have fattened more than 30 heifers and cows 

 free from milk, from March up to the early part of May; their 

 gain has averaged fully 14 lbs. each per week — a result I could not 

 have looked for from the same materials if uncooked. This process 

 seems to have the effect of rendering linseed oil less of a laxative, 

 but cannot drive off any portion of the fattening oils, to volatilise 

 which requires a very high temperature. My experience of the 

 benefits of steaming is such, that if I were deprived of it I could 

 not continue to feed with satisfaction. I have weighed my fat- 

 tening cattle for a number of years, and my milch cows for more 

 than two years; this practice enables me at once to detect any 

 deficiency in the performance of the animals; it gives also a stim- 

 ulus to the feeders, who attend at the weighings, and who are 

 desirous that the cattle entrusted to their care should bear a com- 

 parison with their rivals. Another obvious advantage is in avoid- 

 ing all cavils respecting the weight by my purchasers, who, having 

 satisfied themselves as to the quality of the animal, now ask and 

 obtain the most recent weighing. The usual computation for a 

 well fed but not over fat beast, is live to dead weight as 21 to 12, 



