428 
The Winter 0/ 1885-86. 
have received. There are a few other matters which deserve to 
be mentioned in separate paragraphs. 
Food Mixtures. — As just stated, the great values of these were 
brought out prominently bj the experiences of the past winter, 
and I am enabled to give a few special examples. Mr. William 
Smith, of Woolton, believes in purchasing corn largely, and 
this he has given in the following manner : — 
" I cut all my hay into chaff by steam power, 3 tons at a time, in three 
hours. I steep half a bushel or more of linseed in cold water for seventy-two 
hours. Before use, I throw a small quantity of salt into the steep — the 
quantity depends upon the number of cattle and the rough of the hay used. 
Three tubs are in use for making the steep, one of them used daily. At 8 a.m. 
the cattle man, with his helper, spreads a floor of chaff sufficient for a day's 
consumption ; he saturates the chaff with the steeped linseed, the chaff being 
turned as he throws the steep on, causing the chaff all to be damp alike. 
He puts the meal on 10 lbs. per head for two to three-years old cattle, from 
4 to 6 lbs. for younger things ; he turns it all over twice, so as to mix the 
meal well into the chaff — as that is damp, the meal sticks on ; he then bags 
the whole up, and places it in the several sheds for use. 2 p.m. is the first 
feeding time ; he keeps on giving it in small quantities till 5'30. They 
will eat no more — they are looked at again daily at 8 p.m., but never fed 
at that time. At 6 a.m. they are fed again, and they will keep on until 
9 A.M., then they lie down till 2 p.m. One man fed (thus) 100, all ages, last 
winter ; he has a boy to pump water that flows through underground pipes 
to all the cattle; another boy farms them out and litters them while they 
are being fed. My sheds are 30 feet in width ; they contain a double row of 
cattle, the man feeding them from a pathway down the centre of the shed. 
I liked my hay last winter — it was all good; but in winters before I used 
a lot of rough stuff, mixing good and bad together. The cattle ate it up 
clean, and did well. I like good hay the best, but I can get on well with 
any rough stuff. I have used successfully treacle or sugar, with or without 
linseed. Cattle will eat a mixture of that sort and do well upon it, even if 
all the hay may not be good." 
Mr. Gilbert Murray, of Elvaston, Derby, has sent me a detailed 
account of his feeding last winter : — 
" The stock consisted of 40 two-year-old iinregistered Shorthorn heifers, 
15 Jersey cows and heifers, 30 brood mares and young horses. With the 
exception of the Jerseys and the four working horses the rest were wintered 
on old pastures without house shelter of any kind ; having neither roots nor 
straw, and the new hay being required for the hunters, we had to Tall back 
on a haystack two years old, much weathered and of very inferior quality, in 
fact except under extreme privation no stock would have eaten it in this 
state. The first effort was to improvise a cheap steaming apparatus ; this 
was accomplished by placing a dome-shaped cover over an ordinary cast-iron 
boiler or furnace. The cover was made of zinc with a flange resting on the 
upper lip of the boiler, the bottom, which was open, telescoping well into the 
boiler. So long as the water in the boiler was above the end of the cover no 
waste steam could escape. Close to the boiler was constructed a brick cistern 
capable of containing sufficient food for one meal, in this was placed a 
perforated zinc bottom. A one-inch gas-pipe was brought from the top of 
the cone over the boiler, delivering the steam under the centre of the false 
bottom. The chopped hay and meal were mixed together, placed in the 
cistern, and the steam turned on. A close-fitting lid on the top prevented 
