33S 



THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



THE ECONOMY OF CAKE AND CORN IN FEEDING STOCK. 



With the current month the agricultural year closes. 

 The past season has been one of a >ery exceptional cha- 

 racter as to the weather— trying; in the extreme both to the 

 animal and vegetable kingdom. A retrospective view of 

 what has been experienced is suggestive of many practical 

 questions. What hath its hardships, for example, taught 

 us ? Have we forgotten all about frosted mangolds ? — the 

 extremes of winter and spring, with the cold drenching 

 rains of summer? Or have we profited anything by the 

 pinching lessons it has month after month thus unfolded for 

 our instruction ? It is a well-authenticated fact that Neces- 

 sity hath, under similar circumstances, discovered many 

 short cuts in the onward struggle of life. Have we, amidst 

 starving cattle and the other kindred concomitants expe- 

 rienced, learned how to take better care of our root crops, 

 and otherwise economise the food of our cattle ? 



The current year has been characterized by a searching 

 spirit of inquiry into the economy of food for cattle. All 

 are familar with the often-quoted agricultural maxim of Dr. 

 Johnson — "To make two blades of grass grow where one 

 only gre^ before "; and its counterpart, " to make one blade 

 of grass produce as much butcher's meat or daily produce 

 as two did before," is just as important a beacon in the 

 march of progress; and this is just the spirit of inquiry 

 now abroad in the management of cattle. True it is that 

 the eye of the stock-farmer has long been bent in this 

 direction; but the facts sought after have hitherto been 

 more of a commercial and statistical character, than phy- 

 siological, chemical, and hygenic, and consequently, like all 

 data of the kind, are tolerably devoid of fundamental prin 

 ciples for safe guidance, being merely an illustration of what 

 we and other practical farmers have long been familiar with, 

 viz., that " one farmer's practice can never be another 

 farmer's rule." We are aware that the rejection by prac- 

 tical men of crack systems of farming, such as are exemplified 

 at Tiptree Hall, Lois-Weedon, and other places, as a rule, 

 has been branded as a reigning prejudice of the agricultural 

 body ; but the progress of physical science is fast showing 

 that practical men have more right on their side than their 

 opponents can boast of, and the triumphant progress of 

 Practice with Science over the theoretical but fallacious de- 

 ductions of a sort of generalizing amateur experiraentalism 

 has been very conspicuous during the past year in the 

 feeding of stock. 



Let us investigate this progress by confining our remarks 

 to the economy of " corn cake." We are now purchasing 

 stock for winter feeding, and laying in feeding material of 

 this kind for them, and I shall therefore endeavour to make 

 our observations as practical and applicable to the season as 

 circumstances will permit. 



It is an old saying amongst farmers, that " we cannot 

 turn our cake and corn all into mutton, and also all into 

 mauure." And again, " If we pass off our cake and corn in 

 foul wind behind, there will be little left for the scales, and 

 less for the land." Our readers will experience no difficulty 

 in the satisfactory solution of these two old maxims and their 

 application to what follows. 



The large quantities of beans, peas, and cake given to 

 cattle some time ago were really incredible, and the waste 

 of feeding material truly enormous. We confess that we 



are here speaking of our own experience in the getting of 

 first-prize stock ready for annual exhibition, hiring, and 

 sale ; and the practice followed by ourselves was but too 

 common. We also look back with " burning shame," if 

 we may so express ourselves, to the extra quantity of tur- 

 nips (including roots of every kind) given to cattle, and the 

 prodigal waste of feeding material thereby sustained. 



The consoling solatium to all this extravagance was found 

 in the manure ; but, although as familiar to the ear as 

 " Household words," the doctrine involved was never 

 accepted by ourselves and a large body of practical men in 

 any other light than an unsatisfactory make-shift — the 

 putting of the practical man's candle, as it were, under the 

 scientific man's bushel. From time immemorial " he who 

 makes the most money of his butcher has always been the 

 thriving farmer," and we aver that this will continue to be 

 the case to the end of the chapter ; for to convert our corn 

 and cake into manure in order to grow more corn and cake 

 to be converted into manure, has always been experienced 

 a sort of profitless philosophy in the dark. 



" Turn the penny" is now our maxim, and not turn the 

 manm-e ns before ; to convert our corn, cake, and root 

 crops into twice the quantity of butcher-meat and daily 

 produce we have hitherto done, and to grow double the 

 weight of our present crops by means of the steam-plough 

 and improved artificial manures. Such is now our go-a- 

 head ambition, that we aim not only at an increase of quan- 

 tity from a given amount of feeding material, but also at 

 an improvement in the quality by means of the same philo- 

 sophical data ; the economy of the raw material thus 

 effecting an increase in the quantity and quality of the 

 manufactured article, with a corresponding advance in the 

 price realized for it when sent to market. 



The whole secret of success in feeding on less food than 

 hitherto, lies in going right a-head, guided by the infallible 

 laws of Nature, instead of going round-about by our neigh- 

 bour's homesteads lor a helping hand to lead us like chil- 

 dren, lest we should lose ourselves among the " thorns 

 and thistles" of this world. Farmers were never very fond 

 of this, and the longer we know them the less they like it. 

 If others make more money than we do, we are now begin- 

 ning to get discontented with anything less than the reason' 

 the infallible laws of physical science just mentioned, why 

 they do so '? 



An example or two will best illustrate the above, and the 

 first we shall take is from Mr. Tanner's prize essay in the 

 Bath Journal, " On the comparative value of different kinds 

 of food :" and we may premise that the quotation is made 

 for the three-fold purpose of showing the spkit of inquiry 

 now abroad, the facts adduced relative to the economy of 

 cake and corn, and the unsatisfactory character of the 

 quotation, its being oat of date, and therefore worse than 

 useless to the practical farmer, who is master of his own 

 profession. 



" By a very careful examination of numerous similar ex- 

 periments upon food, the following table has been prepared. 

 These data are the results of actual trials of food, and are 

 not merely speculative estimates of what they are calcu- 

 lated to produce, but reliable reports of what they usually 

 accomplish : 



