OLEAGINOUS FOODS. 73 



store cattle, breeding sheep, and ewes with lambs and without 

 lambs — and the only ill effect that I ever saw from using cotton- 

 seed meal was to early lambs ; but early lambs, (those fitted for 

 an early market,) are exceptions to all the rules of feeding. 

 They are like hot-house plants. They are forced forward for 

 the early market, and it is intended that the lamb, from the day 

 of its birth to the day it goes to market, shall feed freely and be 

 free to go and come. The ill effect I speak of manifested itself 

 last spring, when I lost several lambs, and I laid it to the cotton- 

 seed meal. The lambs appeared to have a secretion about their 

 intestines, and appeared to be dropsical. I have noticed, in 

 feeding sheep heavily upon cotton-seed, that it tended to produce 

 a too great flow of urine ; and I presume it was the same with 

 those lambs — that it produced too great a secretion of water, 

 and killed some of them. 



Such has been my experience in feeding stock upon Indian 

 meal and cotton-seed meal. I have fed it for the reason that it 

 is the cheapest article of feed in the market. It is good for fat- 

 tening purposes, it is good for dairy purposes, and it makes the 

 best manure. 



Mr. BiRNiE. Have you ever fed it to calves ? 



Mr. Smith. I have, in small quantities, and I never saw any 

 ill effects from it. 



Dr. LoRiNG. When I referred to cotton-seed meal, I was not 

 speaking with reference to cows or feeding for milk alone, but I 

 was speaking of the kinds of food most conducive to the health 

 and long life of cattle ; and I said that I considered oleaginous 

 food as injurious to cows, and I gave as a reason, that it produced 

 inflammation of those delicate tissues which were so remarkable 

 in the cow, and which were so easily affecCed by the accident of 

 climate or weather or food, and which rendered it imperatively 

 necessary, in order that a cow should live a long life of useful- 

 ness, and not be cut off in her prime, as Methuselah was, that 

 she should be fed with great care. 



Now I have had experience with cotton-seed meal, and so 

 have others. I began early. I suppose I fed it as early as any 

 feeder in the State. Many years ago, when the Providence 

 Company first introduced decorticated meal — which must have 

 been as long ago as 1859, and perhaps 1858 — a quantity was 

 sent to me and I used it. I found it would produce milk and 

 10 



