366 Oil increasing our Supplies of Animal Food. 



nourishing food was given, and it was again shown that potatoes 

 (supposing them to be an ordinary crop) are valued too highly for 

 feeding purposes at 15Z. per acre. 



The method of feeding adopted in the case of our four Here- 

 ford oxen was the same as we have for the last few years adopted 

 with all our cattle and sheep. Each sheep gets about one-eighth 

 the quantity given to an ox, with about 20 lbs. of swedes daily in 

 the beginning of winter, or of mangold wurzel in the spring. 

 The same method is adopted with cattle during summer : they 

 are fed on the linseed compound along with cut clover or vetches 

 ad lib. The following is our present arrangement, in which, simply 

 owing to the proportion of the stock of food on hand, our pro- 

 portion of linseed- meal and bean and other meal varies from it 

 much. Every day — 40 lbs. of linseed are boiled in 70 gallons of 

 water, and thrown over 44 heaped bushel baskets full of chaff, on 

 which again 250 lbs. of bean and other meal are dusted. Of this 

 the sheep (200) get 16 baskets, i. e. about 15 lbs. of linseed and 

 90 lbs. of meal, equal to IJ oz. of linseed and nearly ^ lb. of 

 meal daily apiece ; and the cattle (30) get 24 baskets, i. e. 22 lbs. 

 of linseed and 135 lbs. of meal, equal to about 12 oz. of linseed 

 and 4^ lbs. of meal each daily. The rest is given to horses. I 

 might give other instances of the profit of feeding cattle on pur- 

 chased food, and of the greater economy of home-made food 

 compared with the oil-cake which is generally used. Mr. Warnes' 

 own published experience has furnished instances ; and the fol- 

 lowing is a case which he quotes : — 



Mr. Postle, of Smallborough, Norfolk, tried the merits of oil- 

 cake against those of linseed and peas. He found that six cattle 

 consumed 20/. 6s. \\d. in linseed, peas, fuel, and labour, besides 

 the swedes and hay they received; and that the other six 

 consumed 21Z. 14^. ^d. in linseed cake, besides an equal quantity 

 of grown food and hay. The former lot, though apparently of 

 only equal weight and quality with the latter at the commence- 

 ment of the experiment, had gained by the close of it, during a 

 period of six months, about 45 stones of beef more than the other. 

 And this advantage on the part of linseed and meal over oil-cake 

 holds good in the case of sheep as well as cattle. Mr. Bruce, of 

 Waughton, in a report communicated to the Highland Society in 

 1844, gave the result of an experiment on this point, in which 

 lots of twenty sheep each were fed variously and tried against 

 one another for a considerable period, and the increase of each 

 being compared with the food consumed, it was found that to 

 every pound of increased weight in one case, there had been a 

 consumption of 101 oz. of linseed- cake : and to every pound of 

 increased weight in another, there had been a consumption of 

 59 oz of linseed and beans (mixed 1 to 6); and to every 



