356 REARING AND FEEDING OF ANIMALS. 



feeding with potatoes and turnips, one meal of the former, and two of the latter, 

 in the day, will be found to be a good arrangement. Potatoes steamed may be 

 piven to oxen; but steamed food is never of the same advantage to ruminating 

 animals, as to animals with single stomachs, as the horse and the hog. 



Bruised corn and meal are occasionally employed in feeding; but these are 

 expensive, and only subsidiary to more common food. 



Another species of feeding is the refuse of the distillery. This consists of 

 the grains of rnalt after distillation, and of the wash or liquid refuse, and 

 wherever these can be obtained, they may be applied to the feeding of cattle 

 with success. They form a very nutritive food, rejected often at first by the 

 animals, but afterwards consumed by them with eagerness. The grains may 

 be given at the rate of from a bushel to a bushel and a half in the day, with a 

 proper supply of dry food; the liquid portion, or wash, is drunk by the animals. 

 The refuse of the brewery is in like manner used for the fattening of oxen. 



Oil-cake is one of the substances employed in feeding. It is highly nutri- 

 tive, is greatly relished by cattle, and it never fails to increase their tendency 

 to fatten when given with their other food. It may be given in quantities of 

 2 Ibs. or more in the day, along with any other food. It is frequently given 

 with hay alone, and the quantity that will feed an ox, is from 12 to 1& Ibs., with 

 half a stone of hay in the day; but this is an expensive feeding, and the better 

 mode of using oil-cake is to give it in small quantities, with less costly proven- 

 der. It may be given with great benefit along with turnips. In this manner 

 the turnips upon a farm may be economised, and a much greater number of 

 animals matured upon it than would otherwise be practicable. 



Salt should be given to feeding animals. The use of this universal condi- 

 ment in the feeding of oxen, has been known from the earliest times. The 

 quantity given may be from 4 to 5 oz. in the day to old oxen, to yearlings from 

 J to 3 oz., and to calves J oz. All oxen will soon learn to lake it if placed 

 within their reach. 



The general method of feeding oxen in this country in summer, is in the 

 fields in the manner described; and this is the more simple and easy method, 

 and that which is the most likely to be generally followed in a country abound- 

 ing in pastures. The practice of soiling, however, has been often recom- 

 mended, and partially adopted, in the feeding of oxen. But this has usually 

 been in favourable situations with respect to productiveness of the soil. It is 

 not a practice well suited to very young stock, which require moderate exer- 

 cise, and do not grow so well when kept and fed in this manner, as when al- 

 lowed to pasture in the fields. Soiling, therefore, when it is practised in any 

 case, should generally be confined to the older stock, at the period of their final 

 feeding. 



The best method of keeping oxen, when soiled, is in the same small sheds 

 and yards as are employed for feeding on turnips. The food must be carried 

 home, and given to the cattle from racks, in moderate portions at a time. They 

 must be fed three times, and may be fed four times, in the day; and they should 

 be kept carefully littered. Between the period of consumption of the first crop 

 of clover or other green forage and the second, there is sometimes an interval. 

 At this time, therefore, there must be a supply of other food, as of tares, which, 

 if sown in the preceding March, will be ready at this time, and will carry on 

 the cattle until the other forage is ready for being cut a second time. 



The rearing and feeding of cattle has been described from the birth to the 

 maturity of the animals; but deviations from the modes described necessarily 

 take place: The breeder, in the case of certain farms, is not the feeder: He 

 merely rears the animal to the maturity of age, or degree of fatness, which the 

 nature of his farm allows, while other persons complete the process of feeding, 

 in the manner which their peculiar situations render profitable or expedient. 



The hardier breeds of the mountains are in general request for being fed in 

 this manner. They are generally purchased lean before winter, and taken to 

 all parts of the low country. They are there fed on straw, or coarse natural 

 hay, during the first winter, with merely such an allowance of green food as 

 can be spared; and they are either grazed and fattened in the following sum- 

 mer, or fed for another winter and summer, as suits best with their age and 

 condition. 



