368 On increasing our Supj)lies of Animal Food. 



And this leads to the question in what condition should food 

 be offered to cattle. Of summer food, vetches, &c., cut and 

 carried to the house, a somewhat costly experience makes us say 

 that it should be cut and left to wither some hours before use. 

 Green and succulent as the vetch or clover is, they are as often 

 physic as they are food, unless somewhat dried before consump- 

 tion. Of winter food — turnips and mangold wurzel — I have 

 only to say that they should be used in the order of their ripen- 

 ing. Common turnips first, then the hybrids, then swedes, and 

 lastly mangold wurzel. They are rarely given boiled : Mr. 

 Warnes has recommended them when cut to be laid in a heap or 

 mashed in a cask along with the hot linseed mucilage which he 

 pours over them, so that the whole is warmed ; but the few exist- 

 ing experiments on the subject, however favourable to the feed- 

 ing of pigs on boiled food, have not recommended its use for 

 cattle. Mr. Walker, of Haddington, found five oxen and heifers 

 on steamed turnips, &c., to cost bl. 195. more during the 

 period of the experiment than the same number on food un- 

 cooked ; and while the latter, after putting a certain value on the 

 food consumed, paid 4/. 125. beyond their cost, the former did 

 not repay their expenses, similarly estimated, by about I65. on 

 the lot. 



And as regards the condition of the artificial food given to 

 cattle. The Harleston Farmers' Club recommend the boiling 

 of the corn even more than of the linseed with which it is mixed. 

 Our practice has been to boil the linseed merely, and then dust 

 the corn meal over the chaff after the boiling mucilage has been 

 added. And that it is of importance thoroughly to reduce the 

 linseed by grinding, and boil it, and convert it perfectly into a 

 mucilage, is proved by the experiments of Mr. Thompson, of 

 Moat Hall, near York. He found that of 1000 grains of un- 

 crushed linseed, boiled for one hour, 84/5 were still insoluble, 

 while of the same quantity crushed, and similarly treated, only 

 525 were insoluble. And, notwithstanding that most of our 

 meat-producing animals chew the cud, it is well to be particular 

 in assisting mastication and digestion by the utmost reduction of 

 their food before it is administered. Turnip-cutters, and chaff- 

 cutters, and corn-crushers, are useful in a meat manufactory, not 

 only by causing the consumption of what would otherwise, to a 

 great extent, be lost, but also by enabling the more perfect 

 exhaustion of the nourishment contained in that which is con- 

 sumed. 



I have said nothing of swine in this part of our subject, but 

 it is well known that they allow of a more concentrated nutritive- 

 ness in their food than other animals, so that it is even the 

 practice to give them greaves, and grease, and blood, and other 



