SECRETARY'S REPORT. 33 



ing them wholly with turnips varies, according to circumstances or acci- 

 dent. Where there are older calves that have been accustomed to these 

 roots, the younger ones soon acquire the method of breaking and eating 

 them, by picking up the fragments left by the former. 



" Towards the month of March, those which are first reared are 

 turned out among the fattening bullocks during the day, and are sheltered 

 in the night ; though, if the weather proves favorable, they are in a few 

 days turned out altogether. In the succeeding summer they are kept iu 

 clover, or other luxuriant grasses, and the following autumn, are suili- 

 ciently strong to stand in the straw or fold-yard. This circumstance is 

 considered tlie chief advantage to be derived from rearing calves eai'ly 

 in the season ; as those which are raised during the spring require two 

 years' nursing. 



" The subsequent method of raising calves, by Mr. William Budd, of 

 Boston, Massachusetts, which obtained the prize from the ' Massachu- 

 setts Society for promoting Agriculture,' we give in his own language, 

 extracted from his communication to that Society : — 



" 'Take calves, when three days old, from the cows, and put them into 

 a stable by themselves ; feed them with gruel, composed of one-third 

 barley, two-thirds oats, ground together very fine, sifting the mixture. 

 Each calf is to receive a quart of gruel morning and evening, and to be 

 made in the following manner ; to one quart of thq flour, add twelve of 

 water, boil the mixture half an hour, let it stand until milk-warm. In 

 ten days, tie up a bundle of soft hay, in the middle of the stable, which 

 they will eat by degrees. A little of the flour put into a small trough, 

 for them to lick occasionally, is of service. Feed them thus, till they 

 are two months old, increasing the quantity. Three bushels of the 

 above mixture will raise six calves.' 



" Mr. Clift, of the New York Agricultural Society, takes the calf from 

 the cow at two or three days' old ; he then milks the cow, and while the 

 milk is warm, teaches the animal to drink, by holding his head down into 

 the pail ; if the calf will not drink, he puts his hand into the milk, and a 

 finger into the mouth, till the beast learns to drink without the finger. 

 After he has been fed with new milk for a fortnight, the cream is taken 

 off the milk, with which an equal or larger portion of thin flax-seed 

 jelly is mixed, and the whole is given milk-warm. Thus, as the spring 

 is the most favorable season for making butter, he is enabled, during the 

 six or seven weeks the animals are kept previously to weaning, to make 

 as much butter as they are worth ; a practice which merits the attention 

 of our farmers, to whom it will afford a very essential saving, particularly 

 in those counties where butter forms a chief article of manufacture. 



"In the rearing of calves, much depends on the regularity of feeding 

 them ; the common practice is to supply them with food twice in the 

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