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THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



meals, and various delicacies to gladden their palates, 

 are imported to a large extent, while the best of shelter 

 is also provided for them. We boil and stoam their 

 vegetables and roots, and treat them as kindly as our 

 own children. Chemistry is continually brought to bear 

 upon the analysis of the substances to be tried as cattle- 

 food, and those only selected for general adoption which 

 are found to be most nutritious and fattening; while 

 various experimentalists strive, from time to time, to 

 make food- compounds for extensive use, which shall 

 combine fattening qualities with portability. As no 

 other country pays so much attention to the improve- 

 ment of breeding and fattening cattle for the market, 

 so no country has experimentalized more on the 

 nature and property of cattle-food. Every useful sub- 

 stance is pressed into requisition, from the chaff or straw 

 of the barn to the more expensive meals or prepared 

 food. 



When we look at the numbers and value of our cattle 

 and sheep, the importance of making a due provision 

 for their sustenance becomes evident. It is for this 

 purpose chiefly that the large quantity of 17,000,000 to 

 20,000,000 tons of turnips and mangel-wurzel are an- 

 nually gi'own in the kingdom for feeding our cattle and 

 sheep in the winter. In Ireland 5,000,000 tons are 

 annually grown ; in Scotland 6,500,000 tons ; and in 

 England fully as much must be grown, although we 

 have no specific returns. When we consider that a 

 beast will eat a hundred-weight, and a sheep a quarter 

 of a hundred-weight per day, a due provision of this es- 

 culent root is certainly very necessary. 



But a number of other miscellaneous substances are 

 pressed into service from cheapness, or as being readily 

 at hand. Brewer's grains and malt commings are readily 

 purchased by some, for feeding. Rye-meal, barley- 

 meal, sago-flour, Indian-corn-meal, rice-meal, any- 

 thing which can be obtained cheaply and in quantity, 

 comes in useful for fattening calves, &c. Our American 

 brethren have been growing tomatoes to feed their 

 milch cows on ; but we should suppose the crop would 

 scarcely be a remunerative one, or indeed in any way so 

 beneficial as our ordinary kinds of food. The sorgho 

 stems would be far preferable, from their saccharine 

 and fattening properties. 



But as an element in the meat-manufacture, 

 •whether in the building up and development of the 

 young and growing animal, the maintaining of the 

 produce of the dairy -cow, or the final preparation of 

 the animal for the butcher, linseed is of the highest 

 importance to the agriculturist. Linseed-cakes have 

 been shown by experiment to be far superior to Indian- 

 corn, pulse, or any description of food, for the produc- 

 tion of fat. English oil-cakes are of course preferable, 

 from being fresher, and containing more oil; but the 

 consumption of foreign oil-cake, as we have shown on 

 former occasions, is largely extending, and bids fair 

 still further to increase — our imports now are al)out 

 100,000 tons, nearly half coming from the United 

 States, and consisting chiefly of cotton seed cake. 

 Although all the cake imported is not applied to feed- 



ing purposes, some of the rape- cake being used for 

 manure, still the bulk is for stock. 



In Ohio and the other leading American States, a 

 large quantity of Indian-corn stalks are used for fodder, 

 and the cob is ground up for feeding; while in the West 

 Indies the expressed stalk of the sugar-cane, and the 

 tops which have been cut off, are highly relished by 

 cattle. 



An article of cattle-food that has come largely into use 

 of late years is the legume known as "locust" beans, 

 being the food of the carob tree {Ceratonia siliqua), 

 of which considerable quantities are now imported as 

 cattle-food. They are grown and consumed to a large 

 extent in Spain, Portugal, Crete, and the greater part 

 of Southern Europe. In Sicily the amount gathered 

 reaches 11,000 or 12,000 tons a year. They have long 

 been used as food for cattle in Spain, and other quarters, 

 and are even relished by the inhabitants, when fresh and 

 ripe, from the sweet pulp they contain. About 3,000 

 tons are grown in Portugal, and 2,000 tons are shipjied 

 annually from Crete. The mean of three analyses gives 

 65 per cent, of sugar and gum, and about 25 per cent, of 

 nutritious vegetable matter. They are imported 

 largely at Taganrog, and there is no doubt that their 

 value as a feeding substance being appreciated, a very 

 greatly increased supoly could be obtained from several 

 quarters in the Mediterranean. 



How much of the science of farming and of all other 

 arts depends upon the saving of material ! upon imi- 

 tating that beautiful law which chemistry teaches us, 

 that in Nature nothing is lost ! This was well demon- 

 strated by Mr. Simmonds in his recent lecture on the 

 utilization of waste substances. We may add another 

 instance pertinent to th subject under notice. In 

 Edinburgh there is a di-tillery of great extent, where 

 economy of heat and material is especially carried 

 out. The " dreg," a waste product, was produced in 

 such quantities that all the cows in Edinburgh could 

 not consume it, and there remained an enormous sur- 

 plus which had to bo discharged into the water of 

 Leith. This nuisance the modern Athenians protested 

 against as an outrage on their sweet-smelling city. 

 Something had to be done. Seedcake had been used 

 by farmers, and it occurred to the proprietors that the 

 "dreg," as well as oil refuse, might be pressed into a 

 cake. Machinery was accordingly fitted up, dreg-cake 

 was prepared, and now the proprietors realize £QQ 

 a-week from the waste product, which, although so 

 much despised in Edinburgh, is now sent to the farmers 

 in all parts of Scotland, to be reiurned in the form of 

 fat cattle and butter and cheese. 



A French veterinary surgeon, of the Imperial Guard' 

 has called the attention of the agricultural world to a 

 biscuit-fodder for cattle in times of scarcity occasioned 

 by drought. It is composed of the usual provender — 

 hay, grain, and pulse. To these may bo added many 

 others— such as the refuse of the wine-press, the pulp 

 of various roots, the stalks of millet and maize, the 

 leaves of the vine, tiie beet-root, and of certain trees, and 

 the sweepings of the barn and hay-loft, which contain 



