54 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



Mr. BowDiTCH. If it is well cured, it comes very near 

 being equal to good hay. For the first time in my life, I 

 this year cut it early enough and got it well cured. 



Question. What is the efiect on the butter of feeding 

 cotton-seed meal or shorts ? 



Mr. BowDiTCH. You get much the same taste in the but- 

 ter that you have left in your own mouth from chewing cot- 

 ton seeds or shorts. A greasy, slightly bitter taste perhaps 

 would express it. 



Question. Would cotton-seed meal have a bad effect if 

 fed in small quantities ? 



Mr. BowDiTCH. I never feed in large quantities. I am 

 speaking of small quantities. I do not mean high feeding. 



Question. What do you call a small quantity? 



Mr. BowDiTCH. I never tried to feed over a quart but 

 once, and then I came near killing a lot of steers. 



Question. You began with a quart? 



Mr. Bowditch. I began with a tablespoonful. I may 

 have increased it a little, but my cattle all showed that they 

 were uncomfortable and I changed the feed. I have fed but 

 very little of it and very sparingly since. 



Question. How about linseed? 



Mr. Bowditch. That has a less bad taste than cither 

 cotton seed or shorts, but I can feed only a very little of it. 

 I can feed it to one cow out of twenty in making butter, 

 perhaps one or two quarts a day, but if I feed it to two cows 

 the parties who sell my butter Avill find it out. 



Mr. . There is some butter made in Franklin 



County that commands as high a price in the Boston market 

 as any that goes there, and the producer of that butter feeds 

 two quarts of cotton-seed meal a day to his cows, and yet 

 there is no complaint made by the customers. How does 

 that happen? 



Mr. Bowditch. There is a orreat diflerence in customers 

 about butter. If it is butter that is very heavily salted, it 

 may overcome a certain taste. I am speaking of what is 

 called " fancy butter," that retails by the pound or half 

 pound at a high price. The butter 3'ou speak of is butter 

 that sells for forty or forty-five cents a pound, I suppose. 



Mr. . That is higher than the average price. This 



