Profitable Employ incut of Agricultural Machinery 



chaotic mass. On many estates and farms 

 large sums of money have been thrown away • 

 on implements and machinery which have 

 proved an encumbrance, and worse than 

 useless. There are, doubtless, some of this 

 description on almost every farm, but the 

 numerous trials of implements and machinery 



under the auspices of the Royal Agricultural 

 Society of England and other associations, 

 coupled with the experience of practical men 

 on their own farms, now widely diffused by 

 the agricultural press, tend in a great measure 

 to obviate the adoption of any but those of 

 tried merit. 



SHELTER IN RELATION TO LIVE STOCK. 



IN the remarks on feeding cattle for the 

 butcher, which appeared in this magazine 

 for November (p. 434), under the title of "Meat- 

 making," we noticed the practice followed 

 by Mr M'Combie of taking up his beasts 

 early from grass, deeming " a week's house- 

 feeding in August, September, and October 

 as good as three weeks in the dead of winter," 

 and shewing that exposure to stormy weather 

 during autumn had the effect of making a 

 difference of ,-^5 a-head between those which 

 had been put up early and others of the 

 same lot left out a month longer on the 

 pastures. This opens up, the question of 

 shelter and its effects, which are not confined 

 merely to live-stock, but extend to cultivated 

 crops, pastures, and we may even add to 

 human beings, as noticed at page 513. 



It is now a well-recognised fact that shelter 

 is an economizer of food ; and this arises 

 from the fact that animals exposed to cold 

 waste the elements of respiration, or fat pro- 

 duction, derived from their food, in keeping 

 up the natural heat of their bodies. Let 

 them have sufficient shelter to obviate the 

 necessity for this dissipation of animal fuel, 

 as it may be called, and the excess goes to 

 the production of fat. " Peeling the flesh off 

 the bones," is a common and very expressive 

 description of the result when animals are 

 exposed to cold drenching rains during the 

 latter part of the year. The "condition" 

 which was acquired during the heat of sum- 

 mer becomes wasted when an extra demand 

 is made upon it in order to maintain the 

 natural heat of the body, and thus those who 

 are careless as to sheltering the cattle at that 



season, when shelter becomes necessary, are 

 practically engaged in pulling down with one 

 hand what they had carefully and expensively 

 built up with the other. 



The merits of the case have been very 

 clearly stated by Mr. John Wilson, Eding- 

 ton Mains, in the following terms : — " But 

 another source of far more serious waste of 

 food than was imagined has been recently 

 discovered, or, at least, more satisfactorily 

 explained than heretofore. It is now ascer- 

 tained that of the food consumed by warm- 

 blooded animals, a considerable portion is 

 expended in maintaining the natural heat of 

 their bodies ; which is, in fact, to be regarded 

 as so much fuel which is dissipated by a pro- 

 cess strictly analogous to combustion, and the 

 fat, accumulated under certain circumstances, 

 as a store of this fuel laid up for future emer- 

 gencies. This being understood, it is at 

 once apparent that if fattening cattle are 

 exposed to a low temperature, either their 

 progress must be retarded, or a great addi- 

 tional expenditure of food incurred. Farmers 

 have long been aware that cattle fatten fastest 

 when kept dry and moderately warm, and 

 they account for this, vaguely, by saying 

 that they are most comfortable in such cir- 

 cumstances. But modern science has taught 

 us that it is in this respect with animals as with 

 steam-engine boilers ; prevent radiation of 

 heat from the latter by a sheathing of some 

 non-conducting substance, and you get more 

 steam from less fuel ; protect the former by 

 suitable clothing or housing — that is to say, 

 keep in their animal heat — and they will eat 

 less and yet lay on more fat." 



