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On increasing our Supplies of Animal Food. 



tendency to disease of the bladder, which certainly is somewhat 

 remarkable : but upon the whole we do not hesitate to recom- 

 mend shed-feeding of sheep as, other things being equal, the 

 healthiest and fastest method of making mutton.* Whether it 

 be the fastest way of making money is another thing : the modes 

 of feeding come in for consideration then, as well as the cost of 

 carrying food and manure. 



I have nothing to say on the hog in this part of the subject. 

 He has always received more care than the other stock of the 

 farmer; and a warm, clean, and well-littered sty is as good an 

 apartment to live in as any fattening animal can desire. 



Of the ox there is more to say. I shall not refer to summer 

 grazing, because that is so thoroughly inartificial a method of 

 management. But as regards the winter feeding of cattle there 

 is a choice of methods requiring discussion. Oxen, when fatten- 

 ing, are sometimes kept in large yards, 10 or 12 together; or, as 

 in East Lothian and other counties, in hemels — small yards 

 containing about two feeding cattle each ; or, as is a still more 

 general practice, in stalls, each tied by the neck to a trough, and 

 having a width of about 5 feet on which to stand or lie ; or, as has 

 latterly come to prevail, in covered boxes, as they are called — 

 that is, in railed divisions, one ox in each, under a roof — the 

 litter and manure being allowed to accumulate under them from 

 one month to another. 



The first plan is clearly inferior to the others. The hemel 

 system has been experimentally compared with the stall feeding 

 by Mr. Boswell, of Balmuto, in Fifeshire. He found that 4 

 3-year old cattle, and 4 2-year olds, in hemels, gained from 1 7th 

 October, 1834, to 19th February, 1835, 23 stones 1 lb. of meat 

 more than the same number of similar animals fed on similar 

 food in stalls. But this was not all profit, for the former con- 

 sumed more turnips than the latter by about 3J tons. The gain 

 of 23 stones of meat was accompanied with a greater consumption 

 of 3J tons of green food. 



I have not met with any other instance of exact experiment 

 on this subject; but this one seems to indicate very clearly the 

 advantage of giving the animals more exercise than they can take 

 when tied by the neck. And I have no hesitation in recom- 

 mending — from 4 years' experience of above 160 head of feeding 

 cattle — box-feeding, as combining the complete shelter and the 

 comparative freedom characteristic respectively of stall and hemel 

 feeding. In a box about 10 feet square, an ox will need about 

 15 to 20 lbs. of straw daily as litter. The dung and soiled litter 



* It may be well just to mention that Lord Talbot and Sir R. Simeon, of the Isle of 

 Wight, have adopted a plan of stall-feeding sheep, of which they speak highly, but the 

 expense of which is we fear too great for an economical manufacture of mutton. 



