'^ -I THE GENESEE FAEMER. 



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of readers, than any attempt to express in one article all that ought to be said on any 

 important topic in husbandry. It may be asked how we know that more than a moiety 

 of food eaten by a horse, ox, or sheep, goes to create animal heat? This is our answer 

 to that question: By the analysis of hay, oats, corn and corn-stalks, and other food of 

 stock, we learn the amount of carbon, (coal,) oxygen, hydrogen, and nitrogen, that 

 100 lbs. contain. It is known that sensible heat is always generated when carbon, in 

 vegetable substances, (of which wood and coal are familiar examples) combines chemically 

 with oxygen, as in combustion. Now, nearly two-thirds of the carbon taken into the 

 stomach in forage, roots, or grain, passes out of the wind-pipe, in combination with 

 oxygen, (vital air,) as carbonic acid. It is just as impossible to burn 20 lbs. of hay in the 

 system of a horse, or cow, and not have it evolve heat, as it would be to burn the same 

 hay in a stove without so much as either warming the fuel or the stove. There is really 

 no more mystery about the production of animal heat through the agency of respiration 

 and digestion, than there is about the heat in a steam boiler; but the needless waste of 

 animal heat, and of the fuel that generates it, in the six coldest months in the year, in 

 this country, amounts to a loss of many millions. To prevent this loss, is the main 

 object of our present writing. It can be done by providing warm and comfortable 

 stables, houses, and sheds, for all kinds of stock, including poultry and honey-bees. 13y 

 ceiling stables in wooden barns inside with rough, boaixls, and filling the space between 

 the outside boards and the ceiling with dry tanbark, or dry horse dung, we have made 

 them sufBciently warm, so that no manure would fi-eeze in them except in extremely 

 cold weather. In basement stables, surrounded by thick walls laid in mortar, and 

 covered by a floor and hay or grain, a word of caution is necessary, not to forget due 

 ventilation. A great many horses, cows, and oxen, are injured by being kept in badly 

 ventilated stalls and stables. Let it never be forgotten by persons sleeping in tight 

 rooms, and by those that rear and keep domestic animals, that the air expelled from the 

 lungs in breathing, always contains one hundred times more carbonic acid gas than it did 

 when it entered them. This poisonous gas should have a reasonable outlet from all 

 stables, especially where many animals are kept in one apartment'. Nothing but knowl- 

 edge will enable a farmer to combine warmth and ventilation for the health and comfort 

 of all that breathe, w^hether in his own dweUing, in stables, pig-styes, bee-hives, or poultry 

 houses. In this, as in all other matters, extremes are to be avoided. 



In wisely selecting the food which is best adapted to the natural wants of neat-cattle, 

 milch-kine, working teams, sheep, and poultry, we all have much to learn. Agriculturist's 

 in the Soiithern States do not appear to understand the art of preparing forage plants, 

 such as cornstalks, straw from grain, grass, or hay, for consumption, so well as do the 

 cultivators of the North, where long winters compel more attention, and give gi-eater 

 importance, to the subject. We have been particularly impressed with the neglect of 

 corn, in Maryland and Virginia, a month after it should have been cut up at the roots 

 ■with a view to make forage of the stems, leaves, and "shucks," for the stock. That is 

 to say, we have seen corn so cut up there after several frosts, and when dead ripe, and a 

 whole month too late, according to the maturity of the crop. All cereal plants undergo 

 important chemical changes at the time of, and immediately after, the ripening of their 

 seed. What these changes are will be hereafter explained, under the head of Agricultural 

 Physiology. At present, we will assume that the farmer has feed enough for the animals 

 he intends to winter ; and if he has not, he cannot reduce his stock, by the sale of a 

 part, a moment too soon. 



The value of cutting feed, such as straw, cornstalks, and hay, is a matter on which 

 we all need more light. It is the general belief that it pays well for the labor; but 

 will it pay to cut good hay, even for working cattle ? If one has hired help, and 

 nothing else for them to do while cutting hay, doubtless it will aid digestion to cut up 

 the stems and leaves of forage plants. And it may be good economy, as is often done. 



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