EFFECT OF STEAMING. 35 



Mr. Hubbard. When we get something new before the 

 Board, we generally consider the one who introduces it as a wit- 

 ness. I would like to question Mr. Birnie still further, and 

 inquire whether his business is making milk or butter ? 



Mr. Birnie. Milk. 



Mr. Hubbard. Then I would ask if the process of steaming 

 food would be equally beneficial for butter as for milk 

 ■ making ? 



Mr. Birnie. I have not the least doubt of it. I think Mr. 

 Stewart's business is butter and cheese making. My box, when 

 I first began to steam, held only enough for one day's feeding, 

 and I steamed every day. I did not like to ask my man to work 

 on Sunday, and so I fed cold feed on that day ; but I found that 

 one day's feeding of raw and cold food lessened the quantity of 

 milk very considerably. I consequently enlarged my box. I 

 ought to state that my man afterwards volunteered to steam 

 Sunday — he did not like to see the milk fall oif — and I paid him 

 extra until I got the box enlarged. 



Another point of saving is in keeping up the animal heat. If 

 you draw off a pailful of milk from your cow, of course you 

 reduce the heat of the animal-; and then, if you fill her with 

 cold water and cold hay, perhaps, you get her pretty cold. I do 

 not give my cows cold water, but warm it a little, and feed them 

 this warm food — warm as blood — and consequently I return 

 something for the heat which has been drawn away from them. 

 I keep my barn as close as I can, keep my cattle in on cold 

 days, and the result is, that they look quite as well as my 

 neighbors, with very much less expense for food, I know. 



Hon. Simon Brown, of Concord. I am very well satisfied, 

 from my own experience in feeding cattle for the last twenty 

 years, and, indeed, nearly all my life, that this subject of cattle 

 husbandry is very imperfectly understood, and the statement of 

 these experiments is exceedingly valuable to us on several 

 accounts, but particularly so because they come from our own 

 people ; people who live in our midst ; people on whom we* can 

 rely as practical men — men who understand their business per- 

 haps as thoroughly as any persons understand their business in 

 this State or country. I have listened, therefore, to these state- 

 ments with very great interest, and I rise to state a circumstance 

 which transpired a few years ago in the town of Waltham. A 



