260 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



last winter, and I am pursuing the same course now, and I 

 am well satisfied with the results at present, although some of 

 my friends have told me that I should soon abandon it, that 

 there are those all around us who have tried it thoroughly 

 and abandoned it, and I should do the same ; but I cannot 

 now say when that time will come, for the longer I do it the 

 better J like it and appreciate it. I remember that in conver- 

 sation with Mr. Biruie, in regard to it, he informed me that 

 he had been steaming the food for his cattle nine years, and 

 thought more and more of it every year. Such an opinion, 

 from one who had tried the experiment, strengthened my 

 faith, and last season I put in a tubular boiler of two-horse 

 power, made a large box, mixed my food as well as I could, 

 — as I should to feed good fead — wet it thoroughly with 

 water, put it into my box, attached it to the pipe from the 

 boiler by a coupling, and steamed, and cooked it thoroughly all 

 day, with as much pressure of steam as the box would bear. 

 I found, by weighing my coarse fodder, straw and corn-fodder, 

 aud weighing my meal, that I could furnish the raw material 

 for forty head of cattle at a cost of less than four dollars a 

 day, or about ten ceuts a head. And I can say this : that I 

 never saw the cattle so perfectly satisfied with what they ate, 

 so contented, so ready to be shown at any time ; they are a^s 

 ready to have a man come to the barn within an hour or half 

 an hour after they are fed, as at any time ; they are perfectly 

 contented, and thrive better than they did before, when I 

 undertook to feed them on dry hay and dry meal. I began 

 this season as early as the middle of November to steam my 

 food, aud I am satisfied that it is a great saving ; I am satisfied 

 that my cows give more milk, that young cattle thrive better, 

 and I am satisfied that they are as healthy, and I do not see 

 that it is any more liable to hurt them than it is to hurt us to 

 have our food cooked nicely. It makes the coarse fodder 

 soft, it makes it very palatable, and they like it, and it 

 satisfies them at a less expense than I can do it in any other 

 way. 



I have been very much pleased in looking over the fine 

 stock and splendid arrangements we have seen yesterday aud 

 to-day, but it is manifest that many of us could not go to 

 that expense. But I observed one thing this morning, in the , 



