658 Abstract Report of Agricultural Discussions. 



for yotmg stock. His idea v/as, that in considering tliese matters 

 they should start with a certain money value, and not the weight of 

 the stock. He had frequently and carefully tried the effects of 

 different kinds of food in what might be termed the manufacture of 

 mutton, and in every instance linseed-cake had beaten everything else 

 hollow. As far as his experience went, carob beans, notwithstanding 

 the amoixnt of sugar they contained, were little better than straw : 

 and added nothing to the weight of the sheep as compared with roots. 

 In conclusion, he remarked that in manurial value nothing was com- 

 parable to oil-cake, 



Mr. ToER said his experience of cotton-cake was that it was not 

 half so cheap as good English oil-cake. The merit of feeding mixtm'es 

 depends, not on the predominance of one particular thing, but the 

 proper combination of various substances. In feeding a cart-horse 

 the animal's digestion should be consulted, and he found that to crush 

 all corn and use it with a little vegetable matter or salt, added at least 

 one-third to its value. Again he had found sprouted barley a third 

 better than barley itself, and he had used it for the last quarter of a 

 century, in spite of malt-taxes. After remarking that the lecturer had 

 let doMTi English linseed-cake rather more than it deserved, Mr. Torr 

 concluded by observing that it was not possible to keep old manure 

 without its losing nitrogen, and if it were highly concentrated and 

 well made, it was not right to subject it to too much exposure. 



Mr. Holland, M.P., referring to the fact that a young animal 

 would take large quantities of straw, he remarked that it showed how 

 unerring Nature was in her laws. When rich, stimulating food was 

 given to cattle at an early age, the animal showed his sense of its 

 artificial character by often leaving it to feed upon straw. He feared 

 that as a rule agriculturists did not know so much of science as they 

 should, and believed it was absolutely essential that that they should 

 be acquainted with the elements of the materials they used for feeding. 

 This would enable them to jndge whether they were acting in a mode 

 that would repay them, or were expending too much tipon highly 

 nutritious food, without taking the question of bulk into considera- 

 tion. 



Mr. MiLLBANK, who had made experiments chiefly as an amusement 

 in the feeding of stock upon various kinds of food, thoroughly concurred 

 in the remark that there was nothing like linseed. Although his 

 sheep undoubtedly throve on cotton-cake, he had had several lament- 

 able accidents in conseqiTcnce of using it (chiefly producing inflam- 

 mation), such as he had never known with linseed. To animals 

 kept in confinement, cotton-cake was simply injurious, and sheep kept 

 in the open air did not thi-ive anything like so much upon it as they 

 did upon linseed. Indeed many animals absolutely refused to eat 

 cotton-cake : to obviate this he steamed the cake in a portable boiler, 

 and then the food was somewhat better relished, but not in the same 

 way as linseed. With animals it is much the same as with us — what 

 we like we thrive i;pon. At any rate, they would thrive least of all 

 upon food they partly ate and partly left. After remarking that the 



