ALLOWANCE TO CATTLE. 441 



the absolnte weights, the amount of labor required, and the milk ob- 

 tained from the animals. It is subject of simple observation, that an 

 animal of great size, all things else being equal, will require a larger 

 quantity of forage than another of less bulk. 



Once the allowance of food is well established, it is greatly to be 

 desired that it be continued with the greatest regularity. Nothing 

 is more injurious to cattle than stinting. Still there is a term in 

 every year when the live stock, or some portion of them, at least, 

 are almost necessarily stinted in their food ; in the depth of winter 

 the animals that are not put up to fatten, consume little or nothing 

 but straw. At this season, consequently, the stock fall off consider- 

 ably in flesh, in strength, and in the milk they give ; and when the 

 loss has been very great, the animals are sometimes too far gone to 

 recover when the spring has come round. This state of things is 

 greately to be deplored, and, indeed, ought to be viewed as most pre- 

 judicial ; it will be altogetJier impossible to advance the economy of 

 neat cattle to the point of perfection which it is fitted to attain, until 

 means are taken to secure every portion of the stock, at every period 

 of the year, a suflSciency of properly nutritious food. Happily, with 

 the progress of agriculture, this condition is becoming every year 

 more and more easy ; the introduction of roots, (turnips and mangel- 

 wurzel,) and of tubers, (potato,) into the routine of every farm that 

 is respectably managed, supplies a fodder, through the whole of the 

 winter, that is equivalent to the grass and other green meats of 

 spring and summer. 



1»haer fixes at 13 lbs. the quantity of hay per diem which a cow 

 requires for her maint;enance in perfect condition ; and if the animal 

 be in milk, he allows as many as firom 22 to 33 lbs. But the ration 

 must vary, as I have said, with the weight of the^animal. M. Per- 

 rault states 27 lbs. as the allowance for a milch-cow weighing about 

 880 lbs. ; he having, in his experience, found that an animal in milk 

 required about 6i lbs. of hay for every 220 lbs. of living weight. 

 Pabst, who paid great attentioL to the feeding of cattle, admits, that 

 for the ordinary allowance of an ox doing nothing, or of a cow which 

 is dry, 3.85, or upwards of 3f lbs. of hay, are required for each 220 

 lbs. of carcass weight ; 4.4, or about M lbs., if the animal be a 

 draught-ox ; and 6.6, or upwards of 6i lbs., if it be a milch-cow. 



The inquiries which I have made into this subject have led me to 

 conclusions somewhat different ; from which I infer, that the rela- 

 tion between the weight of the living animal and the necessary fod- 

 der is not an invariable quantity. A very large ox or cow, relatively 

 to its weight, requires less food than an animal of smaHer dimensions. 

 And this circumstance is a grand argument with those breeders who 

 are in favor of very large cattle ; they saw that if a large ox con- 

 sumes more food than a small one, still the increase of consumption 

 is by no means in the ratio of the increase of weight. 



The milch-cows at Bechelbronn have no more than 33 lbs. of hay 

 per head per diem, or the equivalent of this quantity of forage. But 

 the smallest creature on the farm, at the time my experiments were 

 made did not weigh less than 1110 lbs. '79 stone, 4 lbs.) ; the relor 



