CATTLE GENERAL MANAGEMENT. 797 



which drops outside the boxes, where they can not reach it, and 

 becomes sour. I prefer to make the bottom of the manger tight 

 enough to feed meal, and have no divisions in it, but so arranged 

 that it can be swept, with nothing to interfere with the broom, 

 from one end to the other. If the manger is made of dressed 

 lumber, and is two feet wide in the bottom, the cattle can reach 

 every part of it, and can eat meal or corn from the floor of the 

 manger as well as from a box, and there will be no difficulty 

 whatever in keeping it clean. In a basement barn the mangers 

 can be arranged so that the hay and fodder can be dropped 

 down to the cattle through trap-doors, which can be closed after 

 feeding. If grain and meal are kept on the upper floor, a 

 wooden spout can be arranged to convey this food to each animal 

 and much labor saved. 



Feeding. The reader will recollect that I am now speaking 

 of feeding for beef, not milk, and while many of the directions 

 given will apply to all cases, I yet make quite a difference in 

 feeding for the butcher or the dairy. After some years of 

 experience, I am well-grounded in the belief that it does not pay 

 to grind corn for feeding to beef cattle. I have always found 

 more danger of indigestion and scours from feeding meal than 

 from whole corn, and while the cattle will digest more of the 

 meal, I think it cheaper and better to feed whole corn, and allow 

 hogs access to the dung, than to be at the expense of grinding. 



The most successful feeders of my acquaintance feed whole 

 corn. The experience of Illinois cattle-feeders shows that shock- 

 corn furnishes a perfect ration for fattening cattle, and it is 

 claimed that when the corn is eaten with the husk and fodder, 

 that it is raised and remasticated in chewing the cud. I am of the 

 opinion that it would pay much better to get a good power-cutter, 

 and cut up the fodder and corn all together, than to husk and grind 

 the corn, and feed it and the fodder separate. One advantage 

 of this would be, that the refuse of the fodder would be in a 

 good condition for bedding for the cattle, and would make an 

 admirable absorbent for the liquid manure. I think the cattle 

 would also eat a larger per cent of it than when fed long, and I 

 have the testimony of dairymen who have tried it, that their 



