188 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



VALUE OF CROPS. 



ESSEX. 



Report of the Committee on Comparative Value of Crops as 

 Food for Cattle. 



The com-mittee on the comparative value of the different 

 kinds of crops as feed for cattle, beg leave to make the following 

 report. Your committee would much rather have had some 

 subject to act upon that w^ould not have obliged them to make 

 a merely theoretical report, but as tliere was no claimant for 

 the premium in this case, we arc obliged to make such a report 

 or to make none at all, and therefore have concluded to throw 

 out a few thoughts that have occurred to us on this matter. 

 But few farmers are so situated as to be able to carry out a 

 very systematic course of feeding, so as to test the comparative 

 value of the various kinds of food they may have at command. 

 There are a great many things to be taken into consideration 

 in a trial of this kind, as, for instance, the age and condition of 

 the animal at the beginning of the trial, whether in gaining or 

 losing flesh ; the length of time the trial lasted ; if milch cows, 

 the quantity and quality of the milk should also be taken into 

 consideration, and not by any means should the amount of 

 labor necessary to lay in and feed out what is used be omitted. 

 None of your committee have ever made any very exact experi- 

 ments in this matter ; they are therefore obliged to rely upon 

 the statements of others which they have seen published. 

 Among these there is one which for apparent exactness, and 

 the high authority from which it comes, would seem to be very 

 satisfactory ; but the conclusion arrived at so completely upsets 

 the generally received opinions in regard to the value of many 

 kinds of feed in use among stock-keepers, that we cannot refrain 

 from adverting to it. 



In this trial it is asserted that about twenty-four and one- 

 half pounds per day of English hay kept a milch cow in 

 present condition. Tliis would give 4,189 pounds of hay from 

 December 1st to May 20th, and at a cost of 815 per ton, would 

 make the expense of keeping a cow through the winter, $31.41. 

 This seems very satisfactory for a cow of 1,000 pounds, live 



