60 BOARD OF AGRICULTUKE. 



best pork that is made in the State. Their practice is to feed 

 their hogs twice a day. They have the impression that a hog 

 will fill himself in the morning, and lie down the rest of the 

 day, and digest his food. I beg to ask Dr. Bowen whether 

 that impression is correct, or whether he maintains that his 

 statement was correct, that we should feed three or four 

 times a day in fattening hogs ? 



Dr. Bowen. That is just as you look at the question, — 

 whether you are trying to get the most nourishment out of 

 the feed, or whether you are trying to make the most profit. 

 You can feed a hog enough of nutritious material in food to 

 set him digesting. If you give him a heavy feeding, a good 

 deal of the food passes through him undigested. The peris- 

 taltic movement, the natural contraction of the stomach, and 

 the internal action of the pig, are very good. If the stomach 

 is distended with a heavy feeding, the greater part of that 

 food passes out undigested. I think those farmers of the 

 Connecticut Valley who divide the same amount of food 

 that others give in two rations into four, will get a better 

 result from it, — that they will get more pork from it. I 

 think the digestion will be more complete. 



Mr. Sessions. This idea of tainting milk and butter by 

 feeding cabbage and turnips I have heard discussed a great 

 deal in institutes and farmers' clubs in the Connecticut 

 Valley, where I live ; and a theory has come to be adopted 

 there, in accordance with the fact stated here by Mr. Hadwen 

 and others, that no taint is imparted to the milk when the 

 material is fed immediately after milking. The theory is 

 this (contrary to what the doctor has given us in this essay), 

 — that this material goes to the first stomach, and is rumi- 

 nated then for hours, and the change which it thus passes 

 through liberates the gas, and it leaves the system before 

 there is much milk secreted. The doctor says this material 

 remains in the first stomach twelve, fourteen, or fifteen 

 hours ; and that contradicts this theory. Our theory is in 

 accordance with the facts; the theory which Dr. Bowen 

 gives us would seem to be counter to the facts which have 

 been ascertained by experiment. One of our farmers in the 

 Connecticut Valley, who makes milk for market, and soils his 

 cows, has sometimes sown oats and turnips together. The 

 turnip-tops grow up almost as high as the oats ; and he cuts 



