50 THE COMPLETE FAEMER 



ed. The feeding is different. Cattle kept need no kind of 

 grain, nor even hay, unless to cows about calving time. 

 Straw, with any juicy food, such as roots or drank,^ abun- 

 dantly suffice for keeping cattle in heart through the winter, 

 provided they are sheltered from cold rains. Mr. Bakewell 

 kept his fine cattle on straw and turnips through the winter. 

 A drank for keeping cattle may be made thus : roots, chaff, 

 or cut straw, and salt, boiled together with a good quantity 

 of water ; the roots cut or mashed. The cattle drink the 

 water and eat the rest. Drank for fattening cattle, thus : 

 roots, meal, flax-seed, chaff, or cut straw, and salt, well boil- 

 ed together in plenty of water. If given warm, not hot, the 

 better.' The same author says, ' Hay, meal, and linseed jelly 

 with drank must be excellent food in stall feeding. Linseed 

 jelly is thus made : seven quarts of w^ater to one of flax-seed, 

 steeped in a part of the water forty-eight hours, then add the 

 remaining water, cold, and boil it gently two hours, stirring 

 constantly to prevent burning. It is cooled in tubs, and 

 given mixed with any meal, bran, or cut chaff. Each bul- 

 lock (large) has two quarts of jelly a day; equal to a little 

 more than one quart of seed in four days' 



In a tract entitled Notices for a Young Farmer, WTitten 

 by the Hon. Judge Peters, formerly president of the Penn- 

 sylvania Agricultural society, are the following directions : 



' Cut or chaff your hay, straw, corn tops, or blades, and 

 even your stalks, w^ith a straw cutter, and you will save a 

 great proportion which is otherwise w^asted or passed through 

 the animal without contributing to its nourishment. One 

 bushel of chaffed hay at a mess, given in a trough, three 

 times in twenty-four hours, is sufficient for a horse, ox, or 

 coAV. A bushel of chaffed hay, lightly pressed, weighs from 

 five to five and a half pounds. A horse or horned beast 

 thrives more on fifteen pounds thus given than on twenty- 

 four or twenty-five pounds as commonly expended (including 

 waste) in the usual manner of feeding in racks ; to which 

 troughs, properly constructed, are far preferable.! Salt 

 your clover and other succulent, as well as coarse hay. 

 But over salting diminishes the nutriment. More than a peck 

 to a ton is superfluous. Half that quantity is often sufficient. 

 Ten or fifteen pounds is usually an ample allowance. Feed- 



* The word drank is given us by count Rumford for distinguishing 

 this composition from water. 

 f See farther, Straw Cutter, under the head Agricultural Implements. 



