354* AMERICAN CATTLE. 



"A. B. Conger, ex-president of the New York Agricultural 

 Society, said at same discussion: 'But steaming alone is not 

 sufficient in the preparation of the food. It must be first wet, so 

 that if left alone ten hours it will heat. "Water, in large propor- 

 tion, must be added to the hay or straw after cutting. And so 

 prepared and steamed, thirty head of stock may be kept on the 

 same amount of food, as twenty on unprepared food. The 

 mistake made in the early experiments in this covintry and Eng- 

 land, was, that the food was not sufficiently wet before steaming.' 



"Professor Mapes says, (Transactions American Institute, 1854, 

 page 373): 'Raw food is not in condition to be appropriated to 

 the tissues of animal life. The experiment, often tried, has 

 proved that eighteen or nineteen pounds of cooked corn, is equal 

 to fifty pounds of raw corn for hog food. Mr. Mason, of New 

 Jersey, found that pork fed with raw grain, cost twelve and a 

 half cents a pound, and that from cooked food, four and a half 

 cents. Cooked cornstalks are as soft, and almost as nutritious 

 as green stalks. Cooking is an improvement that pays. Cattle 

 can be fattened at about half the expense upon cooked food, in a 

 warm stable, that others can out doors upon raw food.' 



"S. H. Clay, of Kentucky, says: 'Fed two hogs on uncooked 

 corn in thirty days, 405 pounds, a,nd they gained 42 pounds; 

 while two hogs fed on cooked corn meal for thirty days, ate 270 

 pounds, and gained 80 pounds. The food was then reversed, 

 and the two hogs that had previously had dry corn, were fed on 

 cooked meal. In twenty-six days, the two hogs that were fed on 

 dry food, ate 364 pounds of shelled corn, and gained 44 pounds; 

 while the two hogs fed on cooked meal, ate, during the same 

 time, only 234 pounds, and gained 74 pounds.' Here it appears 

 that a bushel of raw corn makes 5% pounds of pork, while a 

 bushel of cooked meal makes 17/4 pounds. 



"James Buckingham gives, in the 'Prairie Farmer,' an experi- 

 ment with cooked corn meal, corn in the ear, and raw meal. He 



