1856.] Our Forage Crops. 505 



those crude materials are properly supplied iu the form of cut straw, 

 wet, and served with the ground meal, in judicious proportions, 'the 

 scours ' will never occur, and we are able thus to keep our stock on 

 less grain, united with coarser and cheaper forage, and in a superior 

 condition of health. In view of the fact that this coarse and cheap 

 forage contains but little nutriment in itself, many persons are un- 

 able to see its value in the keeping of stock. But, though this coarse 

 forage may of itself possess but little nutrition, (as before remarked,) 

 still it performs an important function in the vital process of yield- 

 ing nourishment: for, by mingling with the rich and nutritive ele- 

 ments in the ground-feed, and separating it, while in the stomach, 

 into divided portions, it detains it there, thus separate and divided 

 for the action of the gastric fluids, whose secretion the stimulus of 

 its presence continually promotes, until digestion of all those nutri- 

 tive elements is perfectly performed. In this way it is that all ten- 

 dency of ground-feed to produce ' scours,' is obviated, and all its 

 concentrated elements of nutrition are economically secured and 

 healthfully supplied. 



In view of these and similar considerations, it would seem that 

 one eminent advantage afi"ordcd by the ' Corn and Cob Mill, ' must 

 consist in furnishing this requisite coarser material, so important in 

 animal digestion, in the matter of the cob crushed up to be eaten 

 with the corn. This idea, as to the importance of the corn-cob in 

 our forage, we know has been ridiculed and scoffed at, by some who 

 predicated their ridicule upon the basis of chemical science. Nor 

 are we ignorant of the fact, that a chemical analysis has shown that 

 the corn-cob contains but about five per cent, of nutritive matter, and" 

 that the remaining ninety-five per cent, is composed chiefly of woody 

 fiber. Under the supposed sanction of this analysis, the scofier has 

 probably urged that we might as well feed cord-wood as corn-cobs to 

 our stock. But before being convinced by a sneer — which, by the 

 way, has never yet either proved or disproved anything — I would 

 remind the sneerer that so too the best of hay contains a large per- 

 centage of mere woody fiber in its composition ; and would ask him 

 why, on Ms assumption^ it would not answer to substitute pine-shav- 

 ings for clover, or feed saw-dust instead of timothy? To those who 

 reason thus it is perhaps not known that still further back and be- 

 hind this analysis upon which they found their faith, is another test 

 of the character of those qualities in forage — a test that tells us what 

 this woody fiber is composed of! — a test that reveals its inorganic el- 



