178 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



April / 



LEGISLATIVE AGRICULTURAL 

 MEETING. 



f Rbported for the New Enolaitd Farmer by Thos. Brablet.] 



The seventh meeting of the series of this socie- 

 ty was held in the Representatives' Hall at the 

 State House on Monday evening, Dr. George B. 

 LoRiNG, of Salem, in the chaii-. There was a large 

 attendance, and much interest was manifested in 

 the proceedings. The question for discussion was 

 "Stock Feeding." 



On taknig the chair, Dr. Loring said that the 

 subject was one of the most important that can 

 occupy the attention of farmers. It involves a 

 system of cultivation, the selection of crops, the 

 choice of animals adapted to a specific purpose, 

 the quantity and quality of manure produced on a 

 farm, and the economy of agi"iculture during those 

 months in which the soil is at rest and man 

 should prepare for the season of growth and pro- 

 ductiveuess- 



To fulfil all the designs of stock-feeding, care 

 and skill should first be exercised in the selection 

 of the animals to be fed, and careful consideration 

 should be had as to the purpose for which they 

 are to be selected in any given locality — as for 

 beef, for milk, for young cattle, store cattle and 

 dry cows. 



Certain constituents of food animals require 

 under all circumstances, viz.: sugar, starch, gum, 

 oil, mineral matter and nitrogenous compounds, 

 and the amount of these demanded is in propor- 

 tion to the waste of matter in the body. Fatten- 

 ing cattle, milch cows and working oxen require 

 more than dry cattle or young cattle kept for 

 store. 



These constituents are contained in hay, straw, 

 grain, roots, oil-cake, &:c., and the object of every 

 feeder should be to obtain these in the most eco- 

 nomical manner, due regard being paid to his 

 farm and his market. 



The speaker considered good English hay as 

 the basis of all the most satisfactory food for 

 stock, as it contained all the constituents he had 

 named in a form bulky enough for our ruminant 

 animals which require woody fibre for digestion. 

 Its nutritive qualities are more concentrated than 

 in straw, and less than in corn ; fed liberally, and 

 •with proper judgment, it will supply all th^wants 

 of cattle on Avhich no immediate demand is to be 

 made, and the manure made from it is rich 

 enough for all ordinary purposes. So much can- 

 not be said of any other bulky articles of food. 

 Straw, corn fodder and meadow hay will serve 

 for variety, but they will not do as a substitute, 

 and whenever they are used to produce beef or 

 milk, they require a large proportion of more con- 

 centrated nourishment, such as grain, roots and 

 oil-cake. He compared animals fed solely on 

 straw V meadow hay to a pair of inflated bellows, 



and said that by examining a meadow hay fed 

 cow and calf in the spring, and using their man- 

 ure, the full eff"ects of coarse feeding upon the an- 

 imal economy and upon the farm would be verj' 

 apparent. 



He said his own experience showed that mea- 

 dow hay, combined with even a moderate quanti- 

 ty of a more nutritious article, was good. He 

 then alluded to steaming, and said he had seen no 

 exact and systematic statement with regard to 

 steam feeding in this country, and he found that 

 authorities in England diSered very much with 

 regard to its utility there. That it renders poor 

 food more nutritious, there seems to be no doubt, 

 but will it also increase the nutritious quality of 

 good food, and consequently diminish the quanti- 

 ty necessary to be used ? The question seems to 

 be, said he, whether cutting and steaming coarse 

 and poor fodder, and mixing it with nutritious, 

 concentrated food like meal and oil cake and bran, 

 is a more economical mode of feeding than sup- 

 plying a sufl[icient quantity of good English hay, 

 grain and roots, to produce the same result. 



He stated that he was feeding 40 cows, in milk, 

 with ten pounds of English hay, half a bushel of 

 roots, two quarts of shorts and a quart of cotton 

 seed meal per day. Calling the hay $20 per ton, 

 and the roots 20 cents per bushel, high prices at 

 the barn, and the grain five cents per day for 

 each cow, he found it cost 25 cents per day to 

 keep each animal in the milking herd. The cat- 

 tle are in excellent condition, and he saved the 

 expense of steaming, fuel, cutting the hay, and 

 the time and labor of mixing the feed. He wished 

 to know the cost of feeding coavs some other way. 



Dr. Loring then spoke of root feeding and soil- 

 ing, and said that in a northern latitude, in the 

 neighborhood of cities and large towns, too much 

 attention could not be paid to the raising of roots 

 for cattle, as these are useful in every section, but 

 more so near large places, and might be advanta- 

 geously used wherever farmers are obliged to pur- 

 chase their grain for winter forage, in the produc- 

 tion of beef ; and in illustration of this, he said 

 that the beef raisers in Western Pennsylvania last 

 year might liave saved a vast amount of money 

 when the corn crop failed, if they had raised root 

 crops instead of depending on Ohio for corn. He 

 said there were dairy farms where butter and 

 cheese were made, and where the cows were dry 

 all winter, where hay was very cheap — $8 or $9 

 per ton — where there was no necessity for a root 

 crop. 



Speaking of soiling cattle, especially milch cows, 

 he said it may be useful and profitable where a 

 market is near and pastures are scarce, but when 

 a cow could be pastured for eight dollars a season, 

 it seemed hardly judicious to adopt any other 

 mode of feeding. 



