184 THE POTATO. 



are more or less confined, the proportion of potato must 

 be reduced, and the quantity made up with sharps or 

 thirds. Pea or bean meal may also be added where the 

 potato is in excess. When malt culms or malt sprouts 

 can be obtained, the feeder need wish for nothing better 

 to add to the potatoes. They are highly nitrogenous, and, 

 what is equally important, have most valuable digestive- 

 properties. The quantity of bran in the mixture given 

 above may be halved, and the weight made up with malt 

 sprouts. Or we may take three pounds of the tubers and 

 one of malt sprouts, mashing the latter into the former 

 while boiling hot, and feeding when cool enough. Such 

 foods as Indian meal, barley meal, and rice meal, which 

 are deficient in nitrogenous matter, should, of course, not 

 be used with potatoes; and when the tuber forms a large 

 part of the morning meal the evening grain should be one 

 that is deficient in starchy matter. Under such circum- 

 stances oats should be fed in preference to any other dry 

 food. 



For Fattening: Poultry. When it is required to 

 fatten stock for table, potatoes are equally useful, and 

 can be used to a larger extent than with layers. The 

 usual mixture of ground oats and sour milk or buttermilk 

 may be supplemented with well-mashed tubers to the pro- 

 portion of one part of the vegetable to three of the other, 

 in the case of chickens that are confined. Ducks, geese, 

 and turkeys fatten well on a mixture of potato and mid- 

 dlings. Malt sprouts may be given also to aid digestibility 

 and supply flesh-forming material, and in the case of such 

 stock, wheat and oats may be fed as an evening meal. 

 Chickens fattened at liberty, or in small runs, may also 

 be supplied with the above mixture, but in cold weather 

 some fat should be added to the meal, as well as to that 

 of the larger stock. Many of our best home-fed Christ- 

 mas poultry have been largely fattened with potatoes, and 

 in Ireland the vegetable, used with buttermilk, is a 

 favourite diet with turkey-feeders and chicken-raisers. In 



