CUTTING AND COOKING FOOD. 353 



" 8th. It saves at least one-third of the food. "We have found 

 two bushels of cut and cooked hay to satisfy cows, as well as 

 three bushels of uncooked hay; and the manure, in the case of 

 the uncooked hay, contained much more fibrous matter, unutil- 

 ized by the animal. This is more particularly the case with 

 horses. 



"These have been the general results of our practice, and, we 

 presume, do not materially differ from those of others who have 

 given cooked food a fair trial. 



"George A. Moore, of Buffalo, N. Y., at the New York State 

 Fair discussion, 1864, says: 'I was feeding sheep, and cutting 

 for them timothy hay, millet, carrots, and feeding with bean and 

 oat meal. Before steaming, I found, by weighing, I was putting 

 on two pounds of flesh per week. After steaming, I put on 

 three pounds per week, and the stock eat the food cleaner, and I 

 noticed they laid down quietly after feeding. I also experimented 

 with sixty-four cows. Used one of Prindle's steamers; had a 

 quantity of musty hay which I cut and steamed. They would 

 eat it entirely up, and seemed better satisfied with it than the 

 sweetest unsteamed hay. Steamed food does not constipate the 

 animal ; the hair looks better. I think cutting and steaming com- 

 bined, insure a gain to the feeder of at least thirty-three per cent. 

 The manure resulting from feeding steamed food, is worth double 

 that from feeding in the ordinary way. Have kept eighty head 

 of stock, and had a surplus of food, on a farm where, previously, 

 only fifty were carried through, and hay bought at that. After 

 cows come in, steamed food increases the milk one-third, and the 

 cows do better when put out to grass.' 



"George Geddes, in the same discussion, says: 'I find if I 

 take ten bushels of meal, and wet it in cold water, and feed 

 twenty-five hogs with it, that they eat it well ; but if I take the 

 same and cook it, it will take the same number of hogs twice as 

 long to eat it up, and I think they fatten quite as fast, in the 

 same length of time. By cooking you double the bulk.' 



