1358 ENCYCLOPAEDIA OF AGRICULTURE. supplement. 



to be doubly nutrltioua to bone*, yet, from a number of experiment! made by practical farmer*, with a 

 view of obtaining the premium of thirty sovereign) offered by the Highland Society of Scotland, it has 

 been given .1- an opinion, that, in the rase of the ruminating animals, no advantage whatever results from 

 cooking their food. {See High Soe. Trims., vol. x. p. 293.) 



B i' j 6856 On the treatment •>/ cattle m winter. An excellent paper on this subject will be found In 

 the Quarterly Journal of Agriculture, vol. ii. p. 22X — 241. Some difference of opinion exists among 

 agricultural writers as to whether young growing cattle ought to be fed, or pampered, aa Dr. Coventry 

 calls it, with rich loud, or supplied with abundance ol coarser food. The writer of the article referred to 

 Inclines to the former opinion, on the principle of its being the farmer's interest to treat his cattle in such 

 a way as shall enable him to bring them soonest to market. Coarse food, he says, ought not to be found 

 on a well-cultivated farm. Straw and water, in an agricultural sense, are not food at all. Straw given 

 to cattle, with a view of being consumed as their only food, is just so much straw wasted, and time lost, 

 in the forwarding of their condition. A limited supply of turnips will keep cattle alive, and may prevent 

 them from falling off in flesh, but it will never bring them to a state of fatness, though they were to eat 

 in that manner for any length of time ; whereas a moderate quantity beyond this limited portion would 

 constitute abundance. Scanty food renders cattle uneasy; whereas food in abundance renders them 

 contented and able to endure every inclemency of weather. A farmer ought neither to rear nor purchase 

 more cattle than he has food sufficient to keep in affluence; for though this might lessen the number, 

 both on individual farms and in the country generally, yet the quantity of butchers' meat brought to 

 market would be greater, and its quality better, than it now is. Hence, on the score of profit to the 

 farmer, and ease and comfort to the cattle themseives, abundant nourishment ought to be given to the 

 latter from the earliest period of their existence, until their growth is complete. Cattle may be fed in 

 houses, and tied to stakes, or in what are provincially called " hammels," which are small open courts, 

 with an open shed for shelter on the north side. Twenty calves, or ten yearlings, may be put into one 

 of these hammels. A hammel with a shed seventeen feet in width and fourteen feel in depth, with a 

 court twenty-one feet by seventeen feet, will contain three large oxen, or four smaller-sized cattle. Every 

 hammel must be supplied with pure water at the command of the cattle. Before the cattle are put into 

 hammels or byres, the floors ought to be well littered, so as to form a sort of drain to carry off the urine 

 to an underground tank, whence it may be pumped up for use. Cattle fed on turnips eat very little 

 straw ; and therefore the first thing that should be given to them in the morning is turnips, the 

 troughs for holding them having been previously cleaned out. In tin- byre, the first thing to be done in 

 the morning is to draw the dung from behind tile cattle into the urine canal ; and while the cattle are 

 eating their turnips, the dung can be wheeled to the dunghill. Fresh straw, for fodder, may be given 

 about the time that the turnips are eaten up, a small quantity being placed before each beast in the byre, 

 and in the racks under the sheds of the courts. Oat-straw is found to constitute the best fodder for 

 cattle; potato oat-straw is. perhaps, better than that of the common oat, as the former is always cut down 

 before it is quite ripe. Hay is, no doubt, better than any kind of straw j and those who have' abundance 

 of that desirable fodder may give it ungrudgingly to cattie, in the certainty of being soon repaid its value. 

 Turnips should be given again about mid-day ; and about three o'clock in the afternoon the mangers 

 should be cleared out, and straw or chaff given. In the byre, after this allowance is eaten up. the man- 

 gers should be cleaned out before giving another foddering of straw. A trowel will be found a handy 

 instrument for this purpose. At the hammels, the last foddering of straw can be given any time after the 

 last allowance of turnips, which should be ample, as the cattle will come backward and forward to them 

 even in the dark, and in moonlight they will feed as well as during the day. Thecalves should be served 

 with turnips immediately after the feeding-beasts ; and the year-olds can also get a few at this time, to 

 complete their day's allowance. Between the allowances of turnips, litter should be sprinkled in the 

 byres and hammels. to induce the cattle to lie down after repletion, to chew the cud, which they will 

 invariably do. At eight o'clock at night, the byres should be looked at with a light, and the cattle sup- 

 plied with the fodder necessary, and their beds made comfortable for the night, by drawing back any 

 dung that may be on them, sprinkling some more litter, and shaking it well up with a fork. At the 

 hammels, if it is moonlight, some more turnips should be thrown, even at this time of night, into the 

 mangers. During the day, the water-troughs should be all kept full of fresh water, and any filth that 

 may have been blown into them by the wind should be removed. When the frost becomes so severe as 

 to harden the turnips, they should no longer be brought from the field, but from the store formed of them 

 in the beginning of winter, for the purpose of supplying the cattle with fresh turnips during the continu- 

 ance of frosty weather; nor should any more be taken even from the store than what can be consumed in 

 a day. Frozen turnips may be thawed by being placed in a tub of cold water; but this is a very tedious 

 and troublesome mode of obtaining fresh turnips in frosty weather, compared to the excellent practice of 

 g a considerable quantity in open weather. 



B463. In the feeding of cattle, it is of the utmost importance that the man who has the charge of 

 them should lie very attentive to his duty ; and, in particular, that he should be exact, even to a 

 minute, in supplying them with turnips: cattle know perfectly well when the time arrives for a fresh 

 supply, even though the mangers in the hammels may not be empty, which they should never altogether 

 lie When they are supplied with food at irregular times, they Will either be always craving it, or become 

 careless about it; and their uneasiness, arising from frequent disappointments, will prevent them from 

 feeding so pleasantly and speedily as when their food is placed before them at exact periods. When the 

 man thus regulates his different works by time, he will find leisure moments during the day to perform 

 many necessary acts ; which, though they may appear of little importance in themselves, nevertheless 

 contribute greatly to the appearance of neatness and comfort in the farm-yard and its inmates. Thus, 

 he might spread the stable-litter along the edge of the turnip-troughs of the year-old cattle, to keep any 

 turnips clean that may have been pulled over by the beasts ; for, when cattle are first put up to feed, the 

 freshness and tenderness of the leaves induce them to eat these first, and in the anxiety of each to obtain 

 another fresh bile, many turnips are necessarily turned over. The man can also shovel and scrape 

 together any mud about the causeways, and the places on which the turnips have been laid down from 

 the field. He can frequently examine the skins of the cattle, and give immediate notice of any erup- 

 tion ; for cattle, after being a month or six weeks on turnips, get very itchy in the skin, the violent 

 rubbing of which often causes ulcerated spots to break out. but which can easily enough be cured at 

 first, by an application of a decoction of tobacco, with a little spirit of tar. He should rub those parts 

 of the body w Inch they cannot easily get at to lick with an old currycomb, and scrape off any dung that 

 may adhere to the hair in the hinder and under parts of the body, with a large blunt knife: and this 

 attention is more necessary at the beginning of the season than afterwards, as the freshness of the stems, 

 and the juiciness of the roots of the turnips, and the greediness which all cattle evince for them at 

 first, often cause a looseness in their bowels. He should observe the first indication of lice in their skins 

 in the early part of the spring, when these may be easily destroyed, by applying to the affected parts a 

 solution of mercurial ointment ; but. if neglected, they will cause much uneasiness to the cattle, making 

 their hair peel off, and exposing to view an unsightly skin ; aim he may handle them frequently on every 

 part of their body, as they are very fond of being handled when they are rising in condition ; and it is 

 also serviceable to familiarise them with man ; as cattle, when they have been accustomed to be handled, 

 will >tand better, and show themselves more satisfactorily to the buyer. There is something so winning 

 in a gentle disposition in powerful animals, caused by good treatment, that a buyer will prefer them, 

 R Ion they have to be driven a distance upon the road ; and the butchers in the neighbourhood will also 

 prefer them, as they will walk peaceably to the shambles, without the risk of being raised to a frenzy. All 

 these constitute the minutije of the business of feeding cattle on turnips in winter ; and, trifling as they 



