46 BOARD OF AGRICULTUEE. 



get on his horse and ride home, and his cows were not visited 

 again till the next morning. I confess to yon, gentlemen, 

 after examining that herd, I was surprised. I found that herd ' 

 in just as good condition as a herd fed three times a day. I 

 had practised, up to that time, for five years, feeding three 

 times a day. I dropped down to two feedings a day, and 

 have followed it ever since for twenty years. 



I would say, in regard to stabling cows, that I prefer stanch- 

 ions, not from any feeling of humanity to the cow, of course, 

 for I regard that as the only barbarous practice I have re- 

 tained in regard to dairying. I think stanchions are hard and 

 uncomfortable things for a cow, but still, a cow will waste less 

 feed in a stanchion, she will keep cleaner, and they are more 

 convenient to use ; that is my apology for using them ; and if 

 slanted a foot forward at the top, the cow will get at her food 

 very easily. 



I bed my cows with sawdust of dry bass-wood. I use 

 about a hundred bushels a week, and l^ed all my animals with 

 it. It aids in keeping them clean, it absorbs all the liquid, it 

 l)rcaks up the tenacity of the cow manure so that I can handle 

 it just as easily as I can handle horse manure, and I find that 

 the sawdust, as it decays, is no set-back on a clay soil. 



Tn regard to saltiuo;, I differ from Mr. Ellsworth. I found 

 it a very good practice to mix with my salt, sulphur, at the 

 rate of half a pint of sulphur to a peck of salt, and a pint of 

 wood ashes to a peck of salt ; and, most of the time, I have fed 

 bone meal, nearly a pint to a peck of salt. I will saj^ that the 

 bone meal I have fed was cleared of all mucilaire. It is bones 

 that have been boiled, every part and particle of the meat 

 taken oif, and prepared on purpose for cattle feed. I mix 

 this bone meal, salt, sulphur and wood ashes, and keep it by 

 my cows continually, ^vhere they have access to it every time 

 they go out of the stal^le. I find this is the best way to salt 

 cows, for the reason that if they have it always before them, 

 they eat it when they want it, and are never forced to eat it 

 when they don't want it, as they are sometimes when it is fed 

 with their food. Then they will never take too much, they 

 know just how much they need, and will eat so much and no 

 more. 



In regard to watering cows, although I let my cows out 



