52 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



them do their own grinding. Why does a physician tell his 

 patient that he mnst not holt his food — that he must not have 

 his food ill such a condition that it will go into his stomach too 

 readily ? He wants him to masticate it, in order that the 

 salivary glands may operate, and the saliva fit that food to go 

 to the stomach and be digested. I want to know why a calf, 

 when you are raising him upon skimmed milk, needs a rope 

 hanging over his pen to suck, or he will suck the ears of the 

 other calves, or anything else ? Because it is natural for him 

 to produce' the saliva from his mouth, when he is nursing his 

 mother, to go into his stomach and assist in digesting the food. 

 I have looked into this matter with my young heifers. I feed 

 them in the morning with ears of corn, three and a half or four 

 quarts apiece, and it produces a great deal of saliva in the 

 mouth. They do not have over ten pounds of hay a day, and 

 they keep well, look well, are fat and hearty, and I have never 

 known one of them to have a sick day. At noon, I give them 

 a couple of quarts of corn apiece, and two quarts of carrots. A 

 horse, weighing 1,160 pounds, has two quarts of shorts at night, 

 from six to eight pounds of long hay, with this fine feed upon 

 it ; in the morning, he has perhaps four pounds of hay, with the 

 corn on the ear. That is all the feed that my horses have to 

 work iipon. 



I endeavor to encourage a disposition in my cows that are in 

 milk to eat all the time. I want to give them food that they 

 cannot fill themselves with readily. In the morning, they have 

 fresh hay, or else go to grass. To be sure, everything that I 

 can bring nearest to grass for a milch cow will produce the 

 most milk. I do not believe in giving them food which will 

 not distend the stomach. AVhen I have cut the food, I have 

 found that the stomach of the cow was not so well distended as 

 when I have fed it uncut. I want to have the abdomen dis- 

 tended as much as possible, and have the cow eat as much food 

 as she can get into it. 



As to breeds of cattle, I have nothing to say for one or 

 another, further than the results I have stated. It is for every 

 man to select the breed best adapted to the capacity and wants 

 of his farm, and which will give him the greatest results. 



Mr. Flint. The chairman referred to one thing which I 

 think should receive a little more attention than it has. I 



