436 TRANSACTIONS OF THE 



or straw or hay, contain less nutriment than when cut green; yet 

 all contain some nutriment, if well preserved. Much depends 

 on the particular objects in feeding. If we wish to make a very 

 large or fat animal in the shortest time, he should have the best 

 of stabling and best of feed. But this, in all circumstances, will 

 not pay. The Hon. Judge Spence, of Maryland, used to ride 

 through his circuit with a pair of very small horses. He said 

 that their progenitors were good sized blood horses; but when 

 they were one year old he placed them on an island in Chesapeake 

 Bay, and kept them there two years without any food or shelter, 

 except what nature provided. This might have been salt marsh 

 and sedge and brush. He said that they were very fleet, very 

 hardy, and easily kept. The wild Indian turns his ponies into 

 the thicket in time of deep snows, and some of them come out 

 in very good condition. We do not advise the provident farmer 

 to imitate him in every case. A finer feed and good stabling is 

 no doubt tlie better way in general, but circumstances alter cases. 

 The horses of Judge Spence might not be highly esteemed by a 

 New- York drayman, but tliey answered his purpose better than 

 some of the pampered teams of the city. The first settlers in 

 timbered lands frequently winter their cattle on tree tops. The 

 buds and bark may form more nutriment than the wood, yet 

 altogether very good food for cattle in time of scarcity has been 

 often obtained from forest trees." 



Upon this, Mr. Robinson said, that so far as he was concerned, 

 he had never intended to advance the idea that corn cobs or corn 

 stalks, or other woody fibrous food might not be beneficial to 

 cattle, in which term he included all kinds of stock, but tliat 

 grinding cobs and cutting coarse, dry butts of corn stalks, for 

 feed, won't pay; and it even depends upon circumstances whether 

 cutting straw and hay will pay; but it does not depend upon any 

 circumstance, because it is a certain fact that an animal may be 

 induced to eat such undue quantities of cut stalks and straw, b}" 

 coating them with meal and seasoning with salt, as to prove 

 injurious. It would require some very nice experiments to prove 

 when and where chaffing stalks and straw, as well as grinding 

 corn, will pay. Certainly not where it is worth only fifteen cents 

 a bushel. 



