FLAX SEED FOR CATTLE FEEDING. 39 



linseed with bean, pea, and oatmeal, may I request of you to 

 favour me with a few lines on the subject, informing me of 

 your expense, and the best method of preparing the seed of 

 Flax for feeding cattle. Your compliance will greatly oblige 



Your obedient servant, 



Tflos. DUGGAN. 

 To Edward McKane, Esq., 



Ballyharden House, 

 near Armagh." 



"Benburb, May 12th, 1850. 

 SIR, 



My absence from my farm prevented my receiving 

 your letter of the 8th till yesterday. That must be my 

 excuse for not replying sooner. I now beg to say that I do 

 not grow Flax for the value of the seed for feeding purposes, 

 but for the value of the Flax itself; however, I have been 

 able to use the seed without, I think, injuring the quality of the 

 fibre. The plan I pursue is to have the seed boughs (or bolls) 

 taken from the Flax as fast as the Flax is pulled, by machines 

 we call ' Ripples," in order that the Flax maybe put into the 

 steep with as little exposure to the air and light as possible. 

 The Flax boughs I then seed to a corn kiln and have them 

 well dried ; they will then keep for years. I get them ground 

 as I want them. Should too large a quantity be ground at 

 once, the oil being expressed fiom the broken seed it is liable 

 to foment, and of course will not keep. 



With reference to your enquiry as to steaming food for 

 cattle, I think that steaming is not economical, except the farm 

 establishment is large; for a moderate farmstead I do not 

 think, that a boiler that would boil thirty gallons of water, 

 would cook perhaps twenty stones of turnips or potatoes with 

 as little fuel as will be required to get up the steam for common 

 cooking the same quantity in a "separate machine. As far as 



