84 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



to day, and the variation in the quality of the milk has been 

 shown to be just as certain as the variation in going from one 

 pasture to another. There can be no doubt that the quality of 

 the food does affect the quality of the milk — in its richness, I 

 mean — and that is a point to which our attention should be 

 turned more than it has ever been. We need some well-settled 

 facts in relation to it, which it seems to me the Board of Agri- 

 culture can give us better than we can get them from individ- 

 uals, because we have the aggregate experience of a large 

 number of people ; and that is what we want. 



Dr. LoRiNG. I want to say one word in regard to roots. Mr. 

 Hubbard alluded to the use of shorts as being injurious to cows, 

 stating that it " run them too hard." I want to call the atten- 

 tion of tlie Board to the fact, that I distinctly stated, in describ- 

 ing my mode of feeding, that I made considerable use of roots. 

 I can never say too much about the root crop. It seems to me 

 every firmer who is feeding cattle for any purpose should 

 remember that root crops really lie at the foundation of tho 

 most economical and profitable feeding. It is a most astonishing 

 thing to me that men shoiild have been laboring twenty years to 

 induce farmers to go into the raising of roots. We have got 

 machinery for planting the seed and cutting up the roots — every- 

 thing is prepared, and I do not see why it is so difficult to induce 

 farmers to engage in the cultivation of roots. The cultivation 

 of mangolds and swedes lies at the foundation of the most suc- 

 cessful farming. That is saying a great deal, but it really does 

 come to that in the end ; and why the sheep breeders of Vermont 

 are so slow in introducing the cultivation of swedes, and the 

 cattle breeders of Massachusetts so slow in the cultivation of 

 mangolds, I cannot imagine. The swedes are raised more easily 

 and cheaj)ly tlian any crop, and the mangolds, considering the 

 small amount of labor and manure required, are really the most 

 profitable crop you can raise for your cattle except swedes. 



Mr. Flint. I should like to say one word more in addition 

 to what I said last niglit in regard to the use of cotton-seed 

 meal. We all know it does not do to draw general conclusions 

 from the result of one experiment, or two or three ; and previous 

 to the statements made by Dr. Loring, I think I had never 

 heard of half a dozen individuals, who had used cotton-seed 

 meal extensively, who had found any objection to it ; while, on 



