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On the utility of grinding Maize f Indian Corn) in the 

 Cob, as food for Cattle, with a description of a Mill 

 for the purpose, by James Mease, M, D» 



Read, May 10, 1814. 



The practice of grinding Indian corn in the cob, to 

 powder, for the purpose of horse feed, is now common 

 with our German farming fellow citizens. Those in- 

 dustrious men are ever attentive to the health and ge- 

 neral welfare of their farm stock, and readily adopt any 

 measure calculated to promote either object, and as 

 they are convinced of the nourishing qualities of the 

 cob, and the economy of the practice of using it as an 

 article of food, they have encouraged the general erec- 

 tion of the necessary apparatus, in the flower mills in 

 their different settlements. 



The first apparatus used for the purpose of grinding 

 corn in the cob, was a screw, which was originally in- 

 vented by Oliver Evans, of Philadelphia, and now in 

 general use to break gypsum. Mr. Evans first reduc- 

 ed it to practice in the year 1795, but no measures 

 having been taken to give publicity to it, the know- 

 ledge of it was diffused very gradually through the 

 country ; and it even appears that private offers for 

 the gratuitous use of it were ineffectual, (until after 

 some years,) in causing a trial of what is now deemed 

 an economical practice of the first consequence. 



It was not until the year 1803, that I heard of the 

 practice having been adopted in Lancaster county, and 

 in 1804 I had great pleasure in seeing it in operation, 

 in a mill on the Perkiomen creek, in Montgomery 



