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On Soiling Cattle^ on Broom Corn, and Guinea Corn 

 as Green Food for Cattle, By John Lorain. 



Read, November 13th, 1810. 



Sir, 



On the 20th ultimo I topped one row of corn to as- 

 certain how it would bear early cutting, and on the 

 31st commenced feeding my cattle with them, and they 

 continue to eat every particle with greater avidity than 

 any other food; and I think thrive faster than on first 

 crop grass: the blades will be given in succession, the 

 husks and stalks will remain to be appropriated here- 

 after: the former are relished by cattle more than any 

 other part of the fodder; the latter weighs rather more 

 than all the rest of the plant, and to reduce them to 

 good food would be an - object of no small considera- 

 tion. In the winter of 1808, my cattle eat all the stalks 

 I had, after cutting them from two to three inches^ but 

 then their other provender vv^as bad, and in 1809 when 

 better provision was made for them, they refused the 

 stalks cut in the same way although they were better 

 saved; this induced me to give over further trial till I 

 could fall on some better mode of preserving them 

 with a larger share of their juices, by cutting or in 

 some other way reducing them much finer without too 

 much expense. 



In your Encyclopsedia you mention some gentleman 

 who cut them very fine with a very powerful cutting- 

 box, how this could be effected by manual labour with- 

 out costing too much I cannot conceive, I have bruised 



R r 



