32 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



receive their chum. I feed at the rate of two quarts a clay for 

 every twelve sheep. 



Hon. Oakes Howard of Winthrop. People in the country 

 generally suppose that sheep or cattle will not eat fish without 

 learning. Is it a fact that they do eat this chum readily when it 

 is first offered to them ? 



Mr. Wasson. I should say they would not during the warm 

 season, as long as they can have access to good pastures. I 

 noticed when I first commenced feeding it to my sheep, that it 

 required about a week before they would eat it readily, especially 

 the younger ones ; the older sheep would eat it the. moment I 

 offered it. There is no salt used in its preparation, so that it is as 

 fresh as when the fish came from the water. Sheep or cattle 

 readily learn to eat it. It is natural for them to waiit such kinds 

 of food. 



Secretary Goodale. With regard to herring, the practice is, 

 almost universally, to pickle the herring, and more or less salt 

 remains in the chum. Porgie chum is usually quite fresh. 



I have had this matter of feeding refuse fish to sheep under ob- 

 servation for ten years and more. It struck me as very queer at 

 first ; I could hardly believe the reports which were given of its 

 success ; but I have not found a single ma'n who has given it a 

 fair trial, with good material, who has not found it successful. 

 And if you will look at its composition, you will not wonder. It 

 is too concentrated a food, too nutritive, to be used alone for sheep 

 or cattle, for their organs of digestion are so ^constituted that it is 

 necessary they should have bulk as well as nutriment. The fish 

 will furnish them, in an inoffensive form, a highly nitrogenous 

 food, which will supply those elements of growth in which our 

 poorer forage products are deficient. It will come in mainly as a 

 supplement to another food. We have a good deal of bog or 

 swale hay, and of other inferior fodder, and this is lacking mainly 

 in nitrogenous elements, those constituents which go to make 

 flesh ; and by giving a moderate amount of dried fish, you supply 

 just what is lacking in the poor fodder, and it will enable you to 

 get along with a much smaller amount of good hay, and thus 

 make your hay go a good deal further. 



The importance of this subject has been growing upon me from 

 the time it was first mentioned. If tliere is any one feature which 

 characterizes Maine as a S^tate, it is the vast extent of her sea- 

 coast, including bays, inlets, &c., which supi:)ly fish, and her great 



