15S LIVE STOCK. 



made by setting a kettle, holding twelve gallons or more. 

 in a furnace, of brick or stone, and over this a hogs- 

 head, with one head taken out, and the other bored full 

 of holes, is set so close that the steam of the kettle, 

 when boiling, can only rise through the holes, and 

 thence ascend among the articles to be boiled in the 

 hogshead, and pass off at the top. In this way a hogs- 

 head full of potatoes will be nearly as soon boiled, as 

 a small part of them only could have been, if placed in 

 the kettle underneath. As the kettle must be so closed 

 as to prevent any steam passing off, but through the 

 bottom of the hogshead or vat, a pipe or tube must be 

 set in one side, through which, with the aid of a funnel, 

 the water is to be poured into the kettle, as often as oc- 

 casion may require. When poured in the tube is to be 

 stopped with a plug. Grain of all kinds may be steam- 

 boiled to great advantage, for feeding and fatting cat- 

 tle ; but, in that case, it is requisite to have the bottom 

 of the hogshead covered with a cloth, to prevent the 

 grain running down through the holes. It was the opin- 

 ion of a late excellent writer in this country, that steam 

 boiling food, for feeding or fatting all sorts of cattle, 

 generally increases the value of the food, as much as 

 forty or i\fty per cent. 



Mr. Davy^ from analysis, has found, that the best 

 wheat contains ninety-five parts in one hundred of nutri- 

 tive matter ; good barley, ninty-two ; rye, seventy-nine ; 

 oats, seventy-four; pcis, and beans, fifty-seven; pota- 

 toes, twenty-five ; beets, and mangle wurtzel, fourteen ; 

 carrots and parsnips, ten ; common turnips, four; ruta 

 baga, six ; cabbages, seven ; clover, four ; other grasses, 

 from two to five. Thus it would seem, that as much 

 nourishment is to be derived from one bushel of wheat, 

 as from upwards of twenty bushels of turnips. This, 

 however, is not the case. What is called the stimulus 

 produced by distention must be taken into the account, in 

 forming a proper estimate of the effects produced in 

 supporting life, by any kind of food ; and it is on this 

 account that, perhaps, fourteen bushels of turnips, par- 

 ticularly when boiled, would sustain life as long, or fat- 

 ten as much, as one bushel ot' wheat. 



The method of littering all kinds of stock, cannot be 

 too highly recommended ; it not only renders the animals 



