Proceedings of the Farmers'' Club. 427 



hard and black, the appetite fails, and they grow poor and scraggy- 

 looking. When the calves come they are poor and weak, and most 

 of them die within twenty-four hours after birth. Perhaps I ought 

 to mention that various remedies have been tried in the shape of 

 medicine, and nothing has been found so efficacious in improving the 

 appetite and giving relief as copperas, dissolved in water and poured 

 down the throat out of a bottle. This seldom fails to give temporary 

 relief, but cannot the assembled wisdom of the Farmers' Club give 

 us something better ? I believe they can and will. 



Here are some of the questions I would like to have answered : Is 

 not our soil deficient in some essential ingredient — say lime, iron or 

 potash % And, if yes, then how can we best supply the deficiency % 



Our soil is what is termed sandy, but it is not lacking in fertility 

 and strength enough to produce good crops of hay and grain. We 

 have plenty of swamp muck, also pure " blue clay," but there has 

 been little or no use made of either of them yet, because this whole 

 tract that I've been describing is what might be called " new," and, 

 as yon may suppose, the people are poor and loth to try experiments — 

 the more so as it is not fertility we are after so much as to raise good, 

 healthful food for our cattle on our own meadows. Now, gentlemen, 

 you have heard my case, and I trust that you will give it a 

 " good hearing." If you have any possible plan to offer I shall begin 

 next spring to put it in practice. 



Mr. F. D. Curtis — Want of good food is what's the matter. We 

 don't have such stock in Saratoga county. The feed ought to be 

 steamed. On Beacon Stock Farm there are 10G head of horses and 

 cows fed on cooked food, which are in the best condition possible, 

 sleek and nice. 



Dr. J. V. C. Smith — I am opposed to feeding cooked food to 

 animals. Cattle have a digestive apparatus capable of assimilating 

 the raw material of food, and when it is cooked their secretions are 

 not made use of, and they become unhealthy. 



Mr. John Crane — When I was young the stock on my father's farm 

 was fed on poor hay and straw. The best cattle were sold and the 

 best hay. Such cattle as remained had the hollow horn, which, I 

 believe, was the hollow belly. I do not believe in cooking food for 

 stock. It is slavery for women and boys. I was called to see a dying- 

 woman, a farmer's wife, once, and in the next room to where she lay 

 were four or five big pots boiling food for hogs. Here was the cause 

 of that poor woman's death, and there are scores just like her. 



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