STEAMING FOOD. BEAN-VINES. 385 



I have cooked or steamed my food for several years. 

 It will be observed that I blend bean-straw, bran, and 

 malt-combs, as flavoring materials, with oat or other 

 straw and rape-cake ; the effect of steaming is to vola- 

 tilize the essential oils, in which the flavor resides, and 

 diffuse them through the mess. The odor arising from 

 it resembles that observed from the process of malting ; 

 this imparts relish to the mess, and induces the cattle to 

 eat it greedily ; in addition to which, I am disposed to 

 think that it renders the food more easy of digestion 

 and assimilation. I use this process with advantage for 

 fattening, when I am deficient in roots. With the same 

 mixed straw and oat-shells, three to four pounds each 

 of rape-cake, and half a pound of linseed-oil, but with- 

 out roots, I have fattened more than thirty heifers and 

 cows free from milk, from March up to the early part 

 of May ; their gain has averaged fully fourteen pounds 

 each per week, a result I could not have looked for 

 from the same materials, if uncooked. This process 

 seems to have the effect of rendering linseed-oil less of 

 a laxative, but cannot drive off any portion of the fat- 

 tening oils, to volatilize which requires a very high 

 temperature. My experience of the benefits of steam- 

 ing is such that if I were deprived of it I could not 

 continue to feed with satisfaction. 



I have weighed my fattening cattle for a number of 

 years, and my milch cows for more than two years. 

 This practice enables me at once to detect any defi- 

 ciency in the performance of the animals ; it gives also 

 a stimulus to the feeders, who attend at the weighings, 

 and who are desirous that the cattle intrusted to their 

 care should bear a comparison with their rivals. An- 

 other obvious advantage is in avoiding all cavils re- 

 specting the weight by my purchasers, who, having 

 satisfied themselves as to the quality of the animal, now 

 ask and obtain the most recent weighing. The usual 

 computation for a well-fed but not over fat beast is, 

 live to dead weight, as 21 to 12, or 100 to 59f, with 

 such modifications as suggest themselves by appear- 

 ances. 



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