NEAT STOCK. 197 



cocks bottom upwards, and after a day or two more carts in. 

 and mows away, with a little salt. He salts all his hay when 

 he puts it in the barn and cuts his corn butts, for nothing 

 except for the horse when worked. Cows readily eat corn stalks 

 that are black and mouldy, when they will reject those that are 

 well dried, fresh and bright. 



The same day we called upon Mr. James P. Putnam, of 

 Fitchburg. He has twenty head of neat stock ; six are cows, 

 and fourteen are young cattle, five horses and three hogs. 

 He feeds six times a day ; three times in the morning, and 

 three times at night. He formerly gave his work horses 

 cut feed; now gives them dry hay and dry corn and cob 

 meal, two quarts only of the meal to a horse morning and 

 night, and a peck of carrots at noon, and thinks they do as 

 well. Barley straw and hay are mixed for neat cattle, and 

 they eat it well. The horse dung goes into the cellar, where 

 the hogs lie upon it and work it over. The droppings from the 

 neat stock fall into the cellar, which is open to the south the 

 length of the barn ; the bottom is covered in the fall with loam 

 five or six inches deep ; this, with the litter of the barn, is 

 worked over with the manure, and in the spring carried to the 

 field for use. High in the barn, six or eight feet below the 

 ridge-pole, a floor of slats four or five inches wide is laid, with 

 spaces between to admit air ; this is used to set corn stalks 

 upon, after they have remained in the field two days after 

 cutting. The air circulating between the slats dries the stalks 

 without souring. Cattle eat them readily. 



Your committee have found many excellent ways in the 

 management of each one of the gentlemen who invited their 

 inspection. Each one has regular and stated times for feeding 

 stock, and a regular system of rotation in the kinds of feed. 

 Nearly all keep their neat stock in the barn, except a short time 

 in the middle of the day in mild weather. Some use their 

 coarse feed, such as straw and corn fodder, in the morning, 

 first feeding ; most of them use it at night, for the last. One 

 keeps his stable manure a year before using it ; one other, 

 whose fields are near the barn, uses his in a liquid state ; the 

 others mix up and use for the crops of the next summer. All 

 of them keep or prefer to keep their manure under cover, with 

 some way to save liquid as well as solid. It is well to know all 



