414 AGRICULTURAL REPORT. 



lost during winter, little or no profit will be realized in the best part of the snc- 

 cecding season. 



In early spring, as the cows come in milk, they should have liberal feed- 

 ing — plenty of good, early cut, well-cured hay, with carrots or mangolds, and 

 perhaps a feed of shorts or other grain or meal once a day. Oats and peas 

 ground together or barley and buckwheat meal will give a better flow of milk 

 and conduce more to the health of a cow giving milk than Indian com, which 

 seems to be of too heating a nature. One fact regarding pasture should not 

 be omitted — which is, that dairy cows make heavier draughts upon them for phos- 

 phates in the soil than any other farm stock. The amount taken up by one cow, 

 supposing her to bear a calf and to yield seven hundred gallons of milk per 

 summer, has been stated by Professor Way to be as much as can be replaced 

 by forty or fifty pounds of bone dust ; and it may well be believed that a de- 

 mand such as this would be seriously felt in the course of years. 



In Cheshire, England, it is customary to use bone dust on pastures to supply 

 the drain made by the dairy cows, and in some cases it has been found neces- 

 sary here also. I am not aware that suffering from "bone disease" is common 

 in this country, but it has been a pretty serious evil in some sections. It is due 

 to the absence of a sufficiency of the bone-forming material in the food ; and 

 when the food does not furnish a supply the bones of the animal suffer ; earthy 

 matters absorbed from them, they become soft and yielding, and the poor creature 

 is with great difficulty able to sustain its own weight. Instinctively such ani- 

 mals crave bones, and if one be found it is gnawed and chewed as a sweet morsel 

 preferable to any other food. A temporary remedy is found in feeding out 

 bone meal, but a far better one, and a permanent, is a sufficient dressing of 

 crushed bones to the land. Of all manurial applications to pasture, none equal 

 crushed bones, either for efficiency or permanency. They can be coari=ely 

 crushed by pounding, or they can first be softened by the action of wet ashes 

 or "hot manure, and be more easily crushed afterwards. Ashes are next to 

 bones in value, as they contain potash and the phosphates also. 



VALUE OF WHEY. 



In the manufacture of cheese from milk there is a large remainder of whey, 

 concerning the value of which some difierence of opinion exists among prac- 

 tical dairy men. In private dairies there is little difficulty in feeding it out to 

 the farm stock in a way to realize a fair- value for its nutritious constituents. 

 Sweet whey is good for young calves. Mr. Willard says : 



"When a pint or more of buckwheat flour is added to sixteen or eighteen quarts of sweet 

 whey it forms a nutritious i'ood, on which calves will thrive almost as well as on uiilk ; at 

 least after one week's feeding on milk they can be reared on whey, as above, without detri- 

 ment." 



In Herkimer county the practice of feeding whey to cows instead of to swine 

 seems to be gaining ground. On this point Mr. Willard says : 



"Whey is also fed to cows giving milk, and with such good results that many prefer to 

 dispose of it in this way, believing it to be the most profitable method. Cows soon become 

 foud of it, and the increased quantity of milk pays better than feeding it to swine." 



When fed to swine, the whey should always be given in connexion with 

 other food, as alone it is insufficient to give profitable results, and incapable 

 of producing wholesome meat. It is generally supposed to be more safely fed 

 when partially soured. Its principal solid constituent is milk sugar. This is 

 very valuable as food, but is unfit for an exclusive diet, as it does not contain 

 all the elements indispensable to a healthy growth. 



Swme, in a state of domestication, and as usually kept in confined and filthy 

 quarters, are very liable to many forms of disease. It is difficult enough to 

 grow wholesome pork with good and sufficient food, but when hogs are kept 



