WINTER M AX AG EM EN T OF STOCK. 



15 



Same day called upon Mr. James P. Putnam, of 

 Fitchburg. lie has twenty head of neat stock, six are 

 cows and fourteen are young cattle, five horses and 

 three hogs. Feeds six times a day ; three times in the 

 morning and three times at night. He formerly gave 

 his work horses cut feed, now gives* them dry hay and 

 dry corn and cob meal, two quarts only of the meal to 

 a horse morning and night, and a peck of carrots at 

 noon, and thinks they do as well. Mixes barley straw 

 and hay for neat cattle, which they eat well. The horse 

 dung goes into the cellar where the hogs lie upon it 

 and work it over. The droppings from the neat stock 

 fall into the cellar which is open to the south the length 

 of the barn ; the bottom is covered in the fall with loam 

 five or six inches deep, this with the litter of the barn, 

 is worked over with the manure, and in the spring 

 carried to the field for use. High in the barn, six or 

 eight feet below the ridge-pole, a floor of slats four or 

 five inches wide is laid, with spaces between to admit 

 air; this is used to set corn stalks upon, after they 

 have remained in the field two days after cutting. The 

 air circulating between the slats dries the stalks without 

 souring. Cattle eat them readily. 



Your Committee have found many excellent ways in 

 the management of each one of the gentlemen who 

 invited their inspection. Each one has regular and 

 stated times for feeding stock, and a regular system of 

 rotation in the kinds of feed. Nearly all keep their 

 neat stock in the barn, except a short time in the 

 middle of the day in mild weather. Some use their 

 coarse feed, such as straw and corn fodder in the 

 morning, first feeding ; most of them use it at night^^ 



