FEEDING SALT. 443 



For simple snetenance (Pabst) 0.75 or i lbs. meadow-hav. 



"When laboring CPabst) 2.0 " " 



When in milk, (Pabst) 8.0 " •' 



" fPerrault) 8.12 « " 



" " (Boussingault, large cows). 8.78 " " 



Growing rapidly [Boussingault] a08 ** •* 



The forage ought to be given to cattle with great regularity, and 

 care should be taken that they do not eat too hastily. Grenerally 

 speaking, they have their allowance three times a day, constituting 

 so many meals, which, however, are well divided, the whole quan- 

 tity for each meal not being placed before the animal at once. This 

 precaution is particularly necessary when the allowance consists of 

 green fodder. The watering should take place in the intervals be- 

 tween meals, the animals being driven to the trough night and 

 morning ; though, when the heat is excessive, it is better to water 

 them three times a day. The water ought to be of good quality, 

 though, if it have no deleterious substance dissolved in it, cattle 

 seem to make no objection to that which is turbid, and which can- 

 not, we should think, be very palatable. Our cattle are watered, 

 during a part of the year, with water from a shaft pierced through 

 a highly argillaceous soil. Cattle seem to dislike excessively cold 

 water ; they then drink as little as possible. The cattle in the great 

 South American plains, drink water at a temperature of from 85° to 

 970 F. In Europe, the best water in point of temperature in winter 

 is that of a deep well. 



Every one is familiar with the taste which herbivorous animals 

 show for salt, and this is one of the articles which is advantageously 

 made to enter into the ration when its price is not too high. In 

 France, it is absolutely necessary to use the article with extreme 

 parsimony — a circumstance which I much regret, and which I can- 

 not but view as prejudical to rural economy : — [in England, where 

 the odious salt-tax has been got rid of, salt, of the most beautiful 

 quality, is one of the cheapest of all manufactured substances.] I 

 know that many feeders do not think salt indispensable ; but their 

 authority is opposed by that of some of the highest names in Ger- 

 many and England, and my own mind has long been made in regard 

 to the value, to the excellent effects of this substance. I ascertain- 

 ed, for instance, that milch-kine, though they would not do upon 

 potatoes alone, throve very well when they had from two or two and 

 a quarter ounces of common salt added to the ration. A celebrated 

 English breeder, Mr. Curwen, recommends about 3| ounces of salt 

 to be given daily to cows and heifers in calf, and to draught-oxen, 

 and something less to fatting oxen, to young animals, and to calves.* 



The high price of salt in France does not allow us to be so liberal 

 at Bechelbronn ; yet we make a distribution of the article three 

 times a week, and in quantities which bring the allowance to some- 

 thing more than about an ounce and a half per day. By way of 

 eking out the allowance of saline matter, we further supply, from 

 time to time, a quantity of Glauber salt, which comes in all to rather 



 Sinclair, Agriculture. 



