164 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



With regard to the comparative value of corn and hay, I do not 

 feel as sure as some gentlemen, that we can ascertain accurately 

 their relative value, for the fact is, that if corn is fed exclusively to 

 animals, they will not and cannot digest and assimilate to their 

 own substance the full amount of nutritive matters contained in it. 

 The construction of the stomach of the cow is such, that it is abso- 

 lutely necessary that something shall be given for the distention 

 of the stomach. It is impossible for the stomach to act as it was 

 made to do unless its walls are distended with something ; so that 

 even wood shavings given with the meal may add to. its digesti- 

 bility. There should be a proper proportion of distending matter 

 mixed with it. If you feed a cow exclusively upon Indian meal, 

 you feed her under such conditions that it is impossible to ascer- 

 tain the value of the nutritive matter contained in the corn. 



With regard to the feeding of the colt and other animals by the 

 gentleman from Bucksport, and its results as related by him, I am 

 sure that his ability to use successfully so small a quantity reflects 

 the highest credit on him as a farmer, for it shows that his hay 

 must abound in nutritive properties to a far greater extent than 

 the average of hay in this country, and that the oats which he 

 raises must also contain nutritive matter much above the maximum 

 quality of the oats raised in the State of New York. In regard to 

 making the warmth of the stable a means of economizing food, I 

 wish to endorse fully what the speaker has said, and I wish to 

 impress upon the minds of the farmers of Maine what a wonderful 

 source of economy is open to them in this alone. 



There is a farm in the State of Illinois, of which many of you 

 have heard, magniflcent and princely in its proportions. I recol- 

 lect being on that farm and seeing the system of operations there. 

 The plowman went out in the morning, after breakfast, and plowed 

 one straight furrow, without turning right or left, until it was 

 time to eat his dinner, when he put his nose-bags upon his mules, 

 sat down upon his plow, ate his own dinner, and then turned 

 round and plowed a straight furrow back, and his day's work was 

 completed. There were seventy-two of those plows in operation 

 upon that field. You may judge something from this fact of the 

 extent of the farming operations. The owner of this farm had 

 over ten thousand cattle upon it ; and when Rosencrans broke 

 down so many horses, almost destroying them, at the battle of 

 Chattanooga, the government requested this man to take in some 

 twelve thousand horses thus broken down, and he took them to 



