1856.] Onr Forage Crops. 499 



lost, to the necessary damage of both owner and animal. Ears of 

 corn, too, are often broken across a sharp-cornered rail into halves 

 or thirds, and then thrown into the dirt from which the cattle 

 are expected and required to rescue it by ' word of mouth.' Also, 

 oats in sheaf are frequently unbound and strewn over the field with 

 the expectation that the sheep are to thrash, gather, and winnow, and 

 save the straw as over it they run in thronging crowds, trampling it 

 under foot and sowing it to the winds, while for the want thereof, 

 the flock, before spring, not unfrequently reap the whirlwind! Yet 

 means and appliances for the more careful and tidy feeding of stock 

 are known to all intelligent farmers, are easily constructed, and in no 

 wise expensive, even if serving no other purpose than mere tidiness. 



Again, it is a fact so well known as to render argument useless 

 that animals, when protected from storms and extreme cold by warm 

 and dr^ shelters, do not require for their support so much forage, by 

 a large percentage, as when exposed to all the severity of our change- 

 able and inclement winters. The providing of suitable shelter, then, 

 to say nothing of the 'animal comfort' thereby promoted, is one 

 method of economy in forage : — and one of no trifling importance. 

 The reason for this is, that warmth becomes, to a certain extent, an 

 equivalent for food ; — or, more properly speaking, an animal when 

 kept warm by a suitable shelter does not demand so great an amount 

 of food, by so much as is needed to suj^ply that additional necessary 

 warmth. For, by a wise provision of nature, whatever may be the 

 temperature of the external air, the living animal has its own inva- 

 riable standard of vital heat. By the consumption of food for the 

 formation of blood this necessary degree of animal heat is maintain- 

 ed ; hence, the colder the external air becomes, the more rapid the 

 waste of animal heat, and of course the demand for food is increased 

 to supply this increased diminution of warmth. Consequently more 

 forage must be consumed under circumstances of exposure in order 

 to keep this animal heat up to the vital standard; and- precisely in 

 so much, as all experience teaches, shelter for animals is equivalent 

 to food. 



Another and a most efficient method of economizing 'feed,' for 

 horses and milk-cows especially, is by the aid and instrumentality 

 of the cutting-box. By various ingenious improvements and modern 

 inventions, the cutting-box has reached such a degree of perfection 

 in its performance as to render it an indispensable 'implement' in 

 agriculture. By the aid of this machine both hay and straw, and 



