ON FEEDING CATTLE. 47 



and the poorer food. Oats and wheat should ever be 

 threshed in such good season as to starve the mice, and 

 be ready to be mi'xed up \yith the corn-stover as soon 

 as it can be harvested. The butts and husks of corn, 

 when housed in good season, have much richness and 

 virtue in them : being yet full of saccharine matter, 

 they require something drier to be intermixed, to keep 

 them from moulding too much. They impart to this 

 straw a sweetness that makes it relished by cattle, and 

 both straw and husks are better for the mixture. 



There is another consideration that should induce us 

 to feed our good food in the first of winter. Our cows 

 are in milk, or they ought to be ; and, while they yield 

 it, they must be well kept. A good farmer should not 

 let his cows go dry four months in the year. Two 

 months are enough in all. reason, and some cows will 

 give milk nearly the whole year round. If our cows 

 become dry by the first of December, " «7 is owing to 

 their hanging up,^^ as the boy, eating porridge, told a 

 sneerer who said he should rather eat swill. Much is in 

 habit. But what shall be done with the milk when it 

 is too cold weather to churn ? Eat it, or sell it, and 

 buy bread and meat. Give it to your hogs : it is 

 cheaper than grain, and if they cannot relish it, raise the 

 cream on it, and let us have it for a breakfast toast. It 

 is better than butter, which will keep till spring, when 

 you begin to be short of everything, — fresh meats, 

 turnips, cabbages, parsnips, and apples. 



The more* milk you- draw in winter, the .greater 

 capacity have your cows for an abundance in summer, 

 if you keep them well. Do not suffer them to be hide- 

 bound nor udder-bound, but keep all their vessels open 

 with roots of some kind which you can raise mighty 

 cheap if you, once resolve. 



Our corn-stover should be dealt out mostly in the 

 fore part of winter, for it is the best dry fodder for cows 

 in milk. They will yield more on good corn-stover 

 than they will on the best English hay, as our experi- 

 ence teaches us. If we had suitable cutters for this 



