SECRETARY'S REPORT. 31 



fill it, on being lightly settled with the hand. The vessel is then filled 

 with boiling Avater, and carefully closed ; at the end of two hours, a 

 brown, rich, and sweet infusion will be produced, not unlite alewort, or 

 strong tea, which will remain good for two days, even during summer, 

 and which is to be used in the following manner. 



"At the end of three or four days after a calf has been dropped, and 

 the first passages have been cleansed, let the quantity usually allotted for 

 a meal be mixed, consisting for a few days of three parts of milk, and 

 one jprt of hay-tea ; afterwards the proportion of each may be equal ; 

 then composed of two-thirds of hay-water and one of milk ; and, at 

 length one-fourth part of milk will be sufficient. This preparation (the 

 inventor of which was, many years since, honored with a gold medal by 

 the Dublin Society of Arts,) is usually given to the calf, in a lukewarm 

 state, in the morning and evening ; each meal consisting of about three 

 quarts at first, but gradually increasing to four quarts by the end of the 

 month. During the second month, beside the usual quantity given at 

 each meal, (composed of tliree parts of the infusion, and one part of 

 milk,) a small wisp or bundle of hay is to be laid before the calf, which 

 will gradually come to eat it ; but if the weather be favorable, as in the 

 month of May, the beast may be turned out to graze in a fine, sweet 

 pasture, well sheltered from the winds and sun. This diet may be con- 

 tinued till towards the latter end of the third month, when, if the animal 

 graze heartily, each meal may be reduced to less than a quart of milk, 

 with the hay-water ; or skimmed milk, or fresh butter-milk, may be sub- 

 stituted for new milk. At the expiration of the third month, the animal 

 will scarcely require to be fed by hand ; though if this should still be 

 necessary, one quart of the infusion (which during the summer need not 

 be warmed,) will be sufficient for a day. 



" The economical mode above detailed has been adopted in some 

 counties of England, Avith the addition of linseed-cake finely pulverized 

 and boiled in the hay-tea only, to the consistence of a jelly, without 

 employing any milk in the mixture ; and as so many excellent artificial 

 grasses are now cultivated for the feeding and fattening of cattle, we con- 

 ceive that an infusio%of any one or more of them would be found more 

 nutritious than if it were prepared from the promiscuous mixtures of 

 grass usually occurring in common hay.* 



* Mr. Crook, (in the Letters and Papers of a Bath and West of England 

 Society,) is said to have great success with this method. Three sacks of linseed 

 lasted him three years — value eleven dollars. One quart of seed boiled in 

 six of water, for ten minutes, to a jelly, was given three times a day mixed 

 with a little hay-tea. His cattle were remarkably fine. 



