18(30. 



NEW EXGLAXD FARMER. 



179 



He then spoke of the use of oil cake here and 

 in England, and showed that while we use less 

 than 5000 tons of cake, the English use 240,000 

 tons, and while it has been freelj' offered here for 

 1| cents per pound, in England, the farmer has 

 paid 2^ cents for it. The extraordinary difference, 

 said he, in the estimation in which it is held in 

 the two countries, is worthy of careful considera- 

 tion. It is probable, he further said, that the quan- 

 tity per cow used by our farmers is too great, and 

 he understood that the English farmer gave one 

 quart per day to a cow, and for fattening sheep he 

 said it was almost universally used in England. 



It is true, said he, that we have no definite sys- 

 tem of feeding among us, but perhaps this is im- 

 possible, as the crops, markets, the object and ex- 

 pense of feeding, all differ in different localities, 

 and in this, as in every other practical operation 

 on the farm, each man must exercise his own in- 

 genuity in ascertaining what he is to feed to the 

 most advantage, and how he is to feed it. 



On motion of Mr. Eddy, of Oxford, the rule 

 was amended so as to limit speeches to ten min- 

 utes. 



]Mr. Howard, of Boston, said the suggestions 

 about oil cake were important, and the wonder 

 was how we exported so much. English and 

 Scotch farmers had informed him that it fetched 

 $10 and $15 per ton more there than here. In 

 relation to English stock feeding, there were two 

 or three important points he would explain. 1. 

 The English and Scotch farmer has generally a 

 better knowledge of the feeding qualities of the 

 animal than we have, being able to tell the value 

 of the cattle on putting his hand on them, as to 

 whether they would pay to feed for beef or mut- 

 ton. 2. They have a more systematic mode of 

 feeding, and then they consider the quality of the 

 manure and its quantity. On the latter point he 

 said that it was known that oil cake abounds in 

 nitrogen, and the cereal crops destroy a large 

 amount of this, consequently the manure from an- 

 imals fed from oil cake produces more wheat, and 

 is so much more valuable. He said that Mr. Rus- 

 sell, of Fife, Scotland, contended that this manure 

 made a difference of from a penny to two pence 

 per pound in favor of wheat. 



Elijah Wood, Jr., of Concord, said he had 

 been farming for twenty years, had cut a good 

 deal of poor meadow hay, and it had been his 

 study how to feed this advantageously. He com- 

 menced with four cows in the milk business, and 

 then cut 20 tons of English hay, and in 15 years 

 he kept 24 cows on the same farm. If, said he, I 

 can attribute my success to any one crop, it is 

 millet. I first cut 1^ to 2 tons of millet, and soon 

 increased to 20 tons. He said he had fed mostly 

 for 10 years on English and meadow hay, mixed 

 with oil meal, two quarts to a cow, which he con- 



sidered equal to four quarts of Indian meal, and 

 the cows held their flesh better on oil meal than 

 Indian ; the quantity he fed, he did not think in- 

 jured the milk. 



He leased a second farm, and on this, last year, 

 he used 1100 loads of manure, as it was about 

 run out, and proposed to do the same this year, 

 and he could see the advantage of doing this, as 

 where he now got 30 tons of English hay, in five 

 years he should get 90 tons ; and next j-car he 

 expected to get 60 tons. He had raised most kinds 

 of roots, but where he could get, on his farm, $12 

 per ton for carrots, 80 cents a barrel for ruta 

 baga, and 12^ cents per bushel for flat turnips, he 

 preferred to sell them to feeding them to cattle, 

 as he thought it better to buy grain He further 

 said he considered oil meal at $35 per ton cheap- 

 er than corn at $1 i^er bushel. 



A cow in milk will eat 23 pounds of Jong hay 

 mixed with four pounds of meal a day. He said 

 he was not using meadow hay alone, but mixed it 

 with less than a sixth part of English, and three- 

 pounds of cob meal, but he found that the substi- 

 tution of the third pound of meal for the half 

 bushel of turnips he had used until within a few 

 weeks, did not quite keep the cows up in milk, 

 but as he had not sale for any more milk, he 

 thought he had done well in adding only one 

 pound of meal to the feed. Millet is not so good 

 as English hay, but is worth f or % as much. He 

 sowed a peck to the acre. Mr. Wood said he 

 would give his cows four quarts of meal if he 

 could sell all the milk he could make. 



Dr. LoEiNG said that Mr. Bowley, of Cirences- 

 ter, England, a prominent dairyman and cattle- 

 feeder, used no grain, and thought it would be 

 more for Mr. Wood's interest to raise more roots 

 and less grain. He, Dr. L., had laid in 6000 bush- 

 els of roots this winter, and he thought they would 

 save him much in hay, and improve the condition 

 of his stock. He had conversed a few days since 

 with a very intelligent Berkshire farmer, who had 

 told him that, for feeding stock, the best crop he 

 could raise was buckwheat. 



Mr, TnoMPSON, of Nantucket, said he had a 

 friend Avho kept 25 com'S in milk. He cut much 

 English and meadow hay and had his corn-stover. 

 When he takes in salt hay and corn stover he puts 

 it in layers so as to cure it through. He then 

 runs it through the cutter and feeds to dry stock, 

 and on this they come out well. Mr. T. said that 

 he proposed to his friend to reduce his stock to IS, 

 and to sell one quarter of his English hay and lay 

 the money out in oil meal, Indian meal or dry 

 feed, and he thought his cows would come out bet- 

 ter and his manure would be worth more from the 

 18 than it was from the 25 cows. He fed as fol- 

 lows : As much hay as the cattle would eat clean, 

 with one quart of Indian meal, and two quarts of 



