EGONOMT OF SAVING STRAW. 



225 



The benefit to be derived from saving straw as food for 

 eattle of every description, presents to the farmer a sufficient 

 inducement to save all he can by any prudent measures, even 

 if after being thus appropriated it was of no farther use, as a 

 manure. It has been found from repeated experiments, that 

 neat cattle, horses, or sheep can be kept as well on wheat or 

 rye straw with a very little oil meal, or that of almost any 

 kind of grain as upon good hay, the value of which has gener- 

 ally been considered much less, than the quantity of hay usual- 

 ly thought necessary ; and after it has beea used as food for 

 cattle, it is prepared in the best manner possible for a rich and 

 efficacious manure. 



It is believed that the straw which is left to waste in the 

 field after harvest, by evaporation, and also that which is spoil- 

 ed for cattle's food, from the careless manner in which it is 

 given to them, if it were saved and converted into manure after 

 having first been made conducive to their support, it would be 

 an improvement in our system of domestic economy, which 

 would increase the agricultural resources of our own coun- 

 try." 



It should be considered, that straw, as a constituent of com- 

 post manure, merits a different consideration from any other, 

 except that of Indian corn stalks, in as much as the farmer 

 from necessity must provide large quantities of this article as 

 an appendage to his bread stuff. It ?is therefore, obviously a 

 dictate of wisdom to turn it to the best account in his agricul- 

 tural operations.' After taking from it the seed, whatever sub- 

 stance he can give to his live stock from it, before it is appro- 

 priated as a manure, is an object which claims from the farm- 

 er the most sedulous attention. The remarks relating to 

 straw, in the essay on manures, relate to the mode of applying 

 it for that object in its crude state ; but in no way can it be 

 Tendered so valuable a manure, as that of first feeding it to caU 

 tie. The dry fibrious substances in straw, exceed those iii 

 gooa hay, in proportion to the respective nutrativc allio«i^l 



