650 Abstract Rejmrt of Agricultural Discussions. 



by Ms advice laacT used tliis remedy had found it answer better than 

 any other. Most persons were too much inclined to rely on medi- 

 cines, and he agreed with the Professor that they should look more to 

 causes. 



The Chairman in proposing a vote of thanks to Professor Simonds 

 said that, as a practical farmer he quite believed almost everything 

 the Professor had told them ; and he agreed with Mr. Dunne, that the 

 only remedy for the evil in question was to endeavour to protect 

 flocks before the disease had got a firm hold. 



3Ieetmg of Weeldij Council, Tuesday, April 2nd. Mr. Thompson", 

 President, in the Chair. A Lecture was delivered by Professor 

 VoECKER on 



The Eelative Value and Manurial Properties of Purchased 



Food. 



Dr. VoELCKER said : In no other country is the art of feeding so 

 well understood as in England. Foreigners, on coming to this 

 country, are surprised when they look at its fat stock, and still more so 

 when told in what an incredibly short time it is fattened for the 

 butcher. For the superior skill which distinguishes the British 

 farmer in comparison with continental stock-feeders there are several 

 reasons, which it may not be amiss briefly to consider, by way of 

 introduction to this subject. They are, indeed, so well known to us, 

 that it is the more surprising that our continental neighbours seem 

 to ignore some of the most rudimentary principles with which every 

 stock-feeder in England is well acquainted. 



The first oversight is " the proper selection of stoclc." The English 

 farmer has learnt to appreciate the advantage of having well-bred 

 animals to fatten, and therefore abstains from spending money upon 

 coarse, ill-bred beasts, which do not thrive upon any kind of food, 

 and, as the saying is, soon " eat their heads off." 



A second point is that the English feeder has learnt that iJie 

 sooner he can, hy good feeding, prepare his animals for the hutcher, 

 though he may spend more money in a given time, the better it will 

 be in the end ; not that he is satisfied with merely giving his stock an 

 abundance of food, but he is very careful in placing before them such 

 mixtures as he has been taught by his own experience are most 

 approiH'iatc to the object in view. 



A third point is, that whilst in many j)a'i"ts of France, Germany, 

 and Holland, and, indeed, throughout the continent of Ern'oi^e, 

 animals are half-starved in their infancy, the British farmer supplies 

 his young stock abundantly ivith cahe and food usually called con- 

 centrated, or, in chemical language, nitrogenous ; nor does he cram 

 yoimg stock with chaff, innutritions grass, and similar bulky food, 

 which on the continent is given too much, to the exclusion of more 

 concentrated nitrogenous food. I should not like to saj^ a word in 

 disparagement of straw as food, which is most valuable in its proper 

 place ; indeed, for fattening beasts, which are abundantly supplied 



