No. 4. 



Corn-Cob Meal. — Sugar Beet for Cattle. 



137 



I cannot too strongly recommend the use 

 of lime. I have expended five thousand 

 bushels within the two last years, and am 

 richly rewarded in the regularity and beauty 

 of my clover, and its kind influence on my 

 other crops. 



I am aware that accounts of extraordinary 

 crops, or the relation of that which is not 

 fully appreciated by others, sometimes sub- 

 jects the relator to the charge of high colour- 

 ing, and, to avoid this, the public are some- 

 times doomed to lose much valuable informa- 

 tion ; but, let every agriculturist bestow 

 proper attention to his soil, and the road to 

 wealth and plenty is before him, and more 

 than I have set forth will be realized, for 

 great is the truth, and it will prevail." 



Joseph Paxton. 

 Cattawissa, Oct. 3, 1840. 



To the Editor of the Farmers' Cabinet. 

 Corn-Cob Meal. 



Sir, — As the question of the value of the 

 cob in feeding, when ground with tlie corn, is 

 again coming into consideration, perhaps the 

 following extract from " Steward's Stable 

 Economy" might go far to decide it, in the 

 minds especially of those who know that the 

 cob is equal in quantity to tlie corn — the only 

 consideration which is necessary in the pre- 

 sent stage of the question : on some future 

 occasion, it may be shown that the cob itself 

 is fully equal in quality to the same quantity 

 of oats for this purpose. 



" Condensed food is necessary for fast 

 working horses ; their food must be in less 

 compass than that of the farm or cart-horse, 

 but to this condensation there are limits. 

 Grain affords all, and more than all, the nu- 

 triment a horse is capable of consuming, even 

 under the most extraordinary exertion; his 

 stomach and bowels can hold more than they 

 are able to digest ; something more than nu- 

 triment is therefore wanted, for the bowels 

 must suffer a moderate degree of distension, 

 more than a wholesome allowance of grain 

 can produce : they are very capacious ; in the 

 dead subject more than 30 gallons of water 

 can be put into them ; and it is thence evi- 

 dent they were not intended for food in a 

 very condensed form, for it seems natural that 

 they require a moderate degree of pressure 

 or dilation to assist their functions — they must 

 have something to act upon. Now, when hay 

 is very dear and grain cheap, it is customary 

 in many stables to give less than the usual 

 allowance of hay and more corn, but the al- 

 teration is sometimes carried too far, and is 

 often made too suddenly; the horses may 

 have as much as they will eat, yet it does not 

 suffice without fodder, and, having no hay, 

 they will leave the grain to eat the litter : a 



craving sensation of emptiness seems to arise, 

 and the horse endeavours to relieve it by eat- 

 ing straw. The sensation cannot be the same 

 as that of hunger, else the horse would de- 

 vour his corn ; but whilst he has plenty of 

 grain and plenty of litter, the diminished al- 

 lowance of hay is borne with impunity. But 

 when sufficiency is not obtained in any shape, 

 the horse loses appetite and becomes emaci- 

 ated ; his bowels are confined, his flank is 

 tucked up, and his belly almost disappears : 

 in general, he drinks little water, and when 

 he takes much he is apt to purge. His belly 

 is often rumbling, the bowels apparently con- 

 taining a large quantity of air, which occa- 

 sionally produces colicky pains; these horses 

 are very liable to crib-biting and wind-sucking, 

 and it is certain that these diseases are very 

 rare amongst those that live on bulky food. 



When the ordinary fodder is very dear, its 

 place must, therefore, be supplied by some 

 other, which will produce a wholesome dis- 

 tension of the stomach, although it may not 

 yield so much nutriment: straw, roots, either 

 or both, may be used in such cases; the 

 tucked-up flank, and the horse's repeated 

 efforts to eat his litter, show that his food is 

 not of sufficient bulk to sustain nature in her 

 operations. And when work demands the 

 use of condensed food in a horse that has been 

 accustomed for some time to bulkier articles, 

 the change must be made by degrees and 

 with the greatest caution ; remembering, that 

 coming from grass or the straw-yard, the 

 horse, for a time, requires more fodder than 

 would be proper or necessary to allow him at 

 his work, after a season." 



Now, it would appear that the cob, ground 

 with the corn, would be just the proper quan- 

 tity of fodder for mixing with the corn — the 

 condensed food — for almost all purposes ; and 

 nothing, surely, can be mingled with it more 

 readily and conveniently, or so profitably as 

 the cob, which, at the same time, saves the 

 expense of shelling. When, therefore, the 

 philosophy of the arrangement comes better 

 to be understood, we may expect that to grind 

 the cob with the corn will be the general 

 practice, for the feeding of stock of all de- 

 scriptions. B. D. 



For the Farmers' Cabinet. 



Sugar Beet for Cattle. 



Mr. Editor, — I find, by an article in the 

 " American Farmer" of the 7th of the pre- 

 sent month, that the lime-sand spoken of at 

 page 36 of the Cabinet, vol. 5, as a covering 

 for beets in the cellar, is a misprint — it should 

 have been loam-soil. Now, as I consider that 

 the error might very possibly turn to good 

 account in the practice — for lime-sand may 

 still have the effect of neutralizing the acidity 



