392 OF STRAW, ITS VAI.UE, AND USES. 



not only to horses, but to cattle, especially fatting cattle. 

 It is thought to give not only fatness, but a fineness of skin, 

 to all sorts of stock.* 



Since the increased price of hay and corn, oats in tht 

 straw, cut in this manner, has been given, even to hard- 

 working horses, in stage-coaches, who thus fed, require 

 but very little, if any hay. (See Appendix, No. XXIII.) 

 This is a practice, however, not to be recommended, and 

 has been justly reprobated as slovenly and wasteful. As the 

 proportion between straw and corn is so different, it is 

 quile impossible that a farmer can do justice to his cattle 

 and horses by this practice. Let the corn, it is said, be 

 first separated from the straw, and then mixed in just 

 proportions, and the same machinery will both thresh the 

 corn, and cut the straw, as is already done in several parts 

 of Scotland. 



3. Barley-straw. This description of stiaw is, in many 

 districts, condemned, as bad food for stock. In the drought 

 of spring, it is said to be very poor feeding, giving neither 

 strength to the horse, milk to the cow, nor flesh to the 

 ox ; and horses, when fed on it, are more subject to 

 botts, (gripes), than when any other kind of straw is given 

 them. 



It. is certain, however, that the ancients considered bar- 

 ley-straw, to be better for feeding stock, than even wheat- 

 straw/j- This probably was owing to the circumstance, 

 that in the superior climate of Italy, barley was better liar- 

 vested, for it is well known, that of all grain, it is the 



* Marshall's Midland Counties, vol. i. p. 227. 



t See Dickson's Husbandry of the Ancients, (on the authority of Co- 

 httnella and Pliny), vol. ii, p. 408, and 409. 



