632 Transactions of the American Institute. 



convinced of its utility. In the past seven years I liave not lost a 

 single animal, and have had no occasion to resort to medicines or the 

 veterinary surgeon. It is the most economical way of feeding both 

 fodder and grain ; it promotes the health of the animal. The feed, 

 when moistened and mixed with ground feed, produces a develop- 

 ment more nearly like grass than if fed dry." 



Mr. T. C. Peters. — A bushel of oats weighs thirty-two pounds, and 

 so 100 pounds would cost one dollar and thirty-five cents, while it is 

 a cent j^er pound for bran. But bran is the most protitable feed for 

 milch cows than any I have ever used. Oats I have never fed to 

 milch cows, but I have given them to the calves. I would as soon 

 have bran as oats to feed cows. All things being equal as to price, I 

 would sooner have bran than oats. I do not know the relative value 

 in making milk, but I think oatmeal would be the' best to make milk 

 and to make bone, as in young cowi^it is much the best. 



Mr. J, B. Lyman. — The ^tate has appropriated §6,000 to ascertain 

 the cause of disease among breeding cows^ but no affirmative result 

 has been reached. Inquiring among the farmers where this malady 

 is the worst, I have found the herds that suffer most are fed on the 

 hay of old and exhausted meadows, and slopped with corn meal. In 

 this food there is little albumen, little from which the animal can 

 make either curd or bone, and being called upon to do both at tlie 

 same time, nature gives it up. The heaviest milk is not the richest. 

 Some milk will, make a pound of cheese from eight of milk, some 

 from twelve. When an animal has young to perfect she should have 

 food rich in flesh and bone material, in that which makes milk heavy. 

 "Wheat shorts is such food; so with good, heavy northern grown 

 oats. It is not well to feed whey only to sows with pig. 

 They should have the curd in some form, or else wheat bran 

 and shorts should be fed with the whey. This trouble with the cows 

 has arisen since railroads and steamships have made it practicable to 

 <3onsume milk far from where it is produced. It seldom originates 

 in butter dairies. Bonedust on the pastures and meadows, with 

 wheat shorts in the winter, in place of corn meal, will rid us of this 

 disease. 



Mr. T. C. Peters. — I used to feed bran to a number of ewes, and 

 lost the lambs by abortion, and when I stopped the bran this abortion 

 ceased. If attention is to be paid to chemistry it will be found jjiat 

 43ats produce more growth of animals than anything else. In Scot- 

 land, where they use nothing but oatmeal, you see the men very 

 iStrongly developed. 



