126 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



a day of good hay; this would be reduced by the addition of 

 half a pint to a pint of beans, grain, linseed meal, or the cotton- 

 seed oil meal, for fatting sheep, and a gill for store sheep. 

 Beans and cotton-seed oil meal are the best articles on which to 

 feed sheep. 



A change of food is very desirable for sheep, and the use of a 

 few roots will be found most advantageous. "We give part of 

 a table compiled by some of the most eminent agricultural 

 chemists and writers of Europe, showing the comparative value 

 of different articles of food, — good meadow hay being taken as 

 the standard. 



100 pounds of good hay are equal to— 



90 pounds of clover, 

 374 pounds of wheat straw,* 

 442 pounds of rye straw, 

 195 pounds of oat straw, 

 839 pounds of mangold wurtzel, 

 504 pounds of turnips, 

 276 pounds of carrots, 



59 pounds of oats, 

 45 pounds of beans, 

 45 pounds of pease, 



60 pounds of Indian corn, 

 45 pounds of linseed meal, 



45 pounds of cotton-seed meal. 



This, however, shows only the relative value of these articles 

 ' as food ; another and most important item to the Massachusetts 

 farmer, is the value of the manure made from these various 

 articles of food. 



Now we know the manure of different animals is of very 

 different value, — and quite as much difference in fertilizing 

 vakre is found to exist in the manure of each animal according 

 to its food. In all the returns we have received, sheep manure 

 is called much more valuable than common stable manure ; the 

 proportion is not exactly given, because none of our farmers 

 have tried accurate experiments, and because its value is so 

 varied by the litter, and other foreign substances composted 

 with it. The tables of Boussingault and Poyen which are good 

 authority, give 36 pounds of sheep manure as equal to 100 

 pounds of common farm-yard manure, and this we apprehend 



