STEAMING FOOD FOR STOCK. 



419 



a supply sufficient for the whole week, and enough is steamed 

 at one charge to last for three or four days. Steam is made 

 only twice in each week (once for cutting and steaming, 

 and once for steaming only), and then only for a short time. 



The steaming box is about four feet square and eight feet 

 high. The materials are put into the box from the floor above 

 that of which the cow stable is an extension, and are re- 

 moved through a door in one of its sides on the feeding floor. 

 Elevated a short distance above the bottom, there is a false 

 bottom perforated with many holes. The steam is let in be- 

 low this, and is thus allowed to rise evenly through the 

 the whole mass. 



The box is made of two thicknesses of one-inch, matched 

 spruce boards (one set running up and down, and the other 

 across). The doors are not made with any very great care 

 to prevent the escape of steam, nor does it seem to be con- 

 sidered necessary to do more than to have the box strong 

 enough to hold its burden of wet fodder. 



The Messrs. Wells find that Mr. Stewart's opinion given 

 above is, in all essential particulars, sustained by the re- 

 sults of their experience. They think that steaming adds 

 one-half to the feeding value of fodder. 



It was what I saw on their farm, more than anything else, 

 which caused me to decide on adopting the system in my 

 own practice. My apparatus is not yet completed, and I 

 cannot, therefore, speak on the subject with the authority of 

 a successful experimenter ; but from all that I can learn, I 



