174 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



that it is their natural food. I say it is not their natural food. 

 I say that God has so formed the animals of any country that 

 they are adapted to the climate in which they are grown. You 

 feed on dry hay in winter, and you say you want roots. Why ? 

 Did you ever know a cow or a steer or a yearling whose bowels 

 were not in just as good condition in winter as in the summer ? 

 Why do you want to fill them up with roots, and make them 

 just like Dr. Loring's washtub, and leaky at that ? The quan- 

 tity of water drank by the animal in the winter with his dry 

 hay, is exactly equal to the quantity taken by him in the sum- 

 mer with his grass, less the perspiration given off in summer. 

 The animal adapts himself to the new state of things. So 

 that, whatever an amateur farmer may say about raising turnips 

 for his stock, I say that any practical farmer who has got to pay 

 off a mortgage on his farm, if he is a wise man, will not con- 

 tinue the turnip culture for more than two or three years. 



Dr. LoRiNG. I have but one word to say in reply to the in- 

 genious argument of Mr. Plunkett. His point upon the labor 

 question will apply as well to hay as to turnips. It costs a 

 great deal of money to make a yard of cloth or a ton of hay or 

 a ton of turnips. That is a privilege we enjoy here. The 

 labor argument, therefore, does not apply to the culture of tur- 

 nips any more than to any other crop. 



In regard to the nutritive qualities of the turnip, as I said 

 before, I cannot give the figures, but I will refer you to them in 

 that valuable volume know as " Flint's Agriculture of Massa- 

 chusetts," — a book for the printing and publication of which Mr. 

 Plunkett has voted an appropriation. It is law and gospel on 

 farming in the State of Massachusetts. I do not know that the 

 turnip is more nutritive in England than here ; I will take it 

 for granted that it is, if he says so. I agree that we must get 

 them into the barn and feed them in the barn. I agree to all 

 that ; but still, experience is better, after all, than chemical 

 tests in regard to the importance and value of the food you take 

 into your own stomachs or give to your cattle. Experience is 

 the best teacher in all these matters ; and when Mr. Plunkett 

 says you never knew an animal to get costive when fed upon 

 dry hay, I would like to ask him if he never heard the old 

 adage — " As tight as a yearling bull in the month of January ? " 

 That is all there is about it. A good many farmers who have 



