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THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



lie down. That was of course, in itself, a mat- 

 ter of very great importance. Now there could 

 not be the slightest doubt that in the feeding of all 

 animals, and more especially oxen and horned cattle, 

 with roots pulped or reduced into small particles, it was 

 necessary that there should be some hay or straw or 

 solid food of some kind mixed with the roots , other- 

 wise the animal would not-be able to chew its cud — it 

 could not exercise the power which it naturally pos- 

 sessed of making its food into little balls. In all cases 

 in which a pulping machine was used for the preparation 

 of roots, recourse must be had to some kind of solid 

 food. Even sawdust should be used with roots, if they 

 had nothing better to mix with them. If straw and 

 hay and roots were all given to them together, the 

 animals would themselves select the proper quantities ; 

 and they would eat the straw and hay at the same time 

 that they were eating the mangel-wurzel or turnips. If 

 the food were prepared artificially, they must always 

 take care to put the proper amount of solid matter with 

 the pulped food ; for, without that, the animals would 

 inevitably become ill. When they came to the cooking 

 of the food, or the leaving the pulped matter to ferment 

 for a certain period of time, they came to a totally dis- 

 tinct question. The question which then arose was, 

 whether they wished to fatten the animal within a very 

 short tim.e ; and whether, therefore, a portion of the di- 

 gestion should, as it were, take place before the food 

 was given to the animal. In that case, they might fer- 

 ment the food to a certain extent before giving it to the 

 animal, and thus cause it to fatten quicker than it would 

 do under ordinary circumstances. An illustration of 

 this was afforded by the experiments of Dr. Thompson 

 on the malting of barley. Now this was the simple 

 question to be considered in reference to the pulping 

 of roots. If they chose to let roots ferment for a 

 certain time, they would have a portion of the starchy 

 matters turned into sugar. If they mixed with the 

 pulpy matter a certain quantity of chopped straw, 

 and the straw were well intermingled with the fer- 

 mented matter, the food would furnish an increased 

 amount of nutrition, and the animal would be able 

 to obtain a given amount of aliment in a shorter time 

 than it otherwise could. It was remarked by Mr. 

 James that horses and cattle did not like food which 

 had been fermented. He believed that horses liked 

 sugar and treacle better than almost anything else. He 

 once met with a pony which, in consequenc3 of being 

 out of health, had some treacle given to it with its food ; 

 and such was the sagacity of that animal, that it would 

 never afterwards eat its food without treacle (laughter). 

 In conclusion, he would remark that he thought a cer- 

 tain amount of solid matter was absolutely necessary ; 

 that fermentation was merely a certain amount of diges- 

 tion outside the animal ; and that pulping was merely a 

 mechanical means of assisting the animal to do a certain 

 thing in a shorter time than it would otherwise be able 

 to do it in (Hear, hear). 



Mr. Thomas (Bletsoe) said he had during the last 

 two years done a little in the way of pulping or mincing. 

 He had tried the system of fermentation. It depended 



a good deal on the weather. In cold weather it would 

 take four-and-twenty hours to produce the same 

 c fleet that was produced in hot weather in twelve hours. 

 His plan of pulping or mincing was simply this : 

 Having a fixed steam-engine, he applied a strap to the 

 pulper ; a scuttle basket having been put under the 

 pulper to catch the i>ulp as it fell from the machine, 

 and which was removed through a loop-hole into an 

 adjoining chamber, and was all mixed with the chaff ; 

 and after it had remained about four-and-twenty 

 hours, it was given to the animals. He found that 

 his store.bcast did exceedingly well upon that system, 

 better than they did upon mangel wurzel which was 

 not pulped. It was a great question now, whether 

 the thing would pay if the work was done by hand. 

 He had given pigs pulped mangel wurzel mixed with 

 barley-meal, bean-meal, and other sorts of meal. This 

 year he had consumed a good deal of wheat-meal along 

 with barley-meal, because it was at the present time one 

 of the cheapest articles of food that could be used 

 (Hear, hear). He referred of course to the tailings of 

 wheat; but even if they used the best, it was question- 

 able whether at present it would not be more profitable 

 than oilcake. He had also tried the pulping system 

 with fat beasts — tried it in connection with cake and dif- 

 ferent sorts of corn ; buthe was not ashamed to confess that 

 he had not made any profit this year ; on the contrary, 

 he had decidedly sustained a loss with every experiment 

 that he could adopt. His own experience, with regard 

 to pulping and mincing, went to show that they 

 caused a great saving of roots. He admitted that this 

 question was in a great degree one of expense, but even 

 in that point of view he was inclined to advocate it. 



Mr. G. Smythies (Mariow, Leintwardine) had tried 

 pulping for a couple of years, and had not found it so 

 expensive as some gentlemen appeared to have done. 

 Putting as he did a strap to a steam-engine, like the 

 last speaker, he found the expense very small indeed. 

 He had tried it for too short a time to speak positively 

 as to the benefits to be derived from pulping roots, but 

 his impression was that it answered well for store stock, 

 and also for feeding beasts, where a large quantity of 

 cake or corn was given ; but in the ordinary way of 

 feeding with turnips and hay or straw it did not pay. 

 He thought with some of the former speakers that more 

 time was required to judge of its merits. 



Mr. Lyali. (Lincolnshire) said that for the last two 

 years he had used a root-pulper. The first time he did 

 so was immediately after the Lincoln Exhibition of the 

 Royal Agricultural Society. Before that event he and 

 his neighbours were rather behind the rest of the com • 

 munity in agricultural implements, and one gentleman 

 went so far as to say that the village blacksmith could 

 supply them with all the implements they required ; but 

 this the Lincoln Show proved to be altogether a mistake 

 (Hear, hear). The first pulper he had was manufactured 

 by Keeley ; but he found during the first year that using 

 it economically with store beasts he was exactly in the 

 same position as Mr. Bennett, with Phillips's pulper, and 

 that it would not do a sufficient quantity of roots to en- 

 able them to hold out. In the fattening of pigs he found 



