62 
Recent Improvements in Haymaking. 
have tried it, botli in making tlic ricks in summer and in using 
them in winter. The point aimed at is to give an aromatic 
flavour whicli shall be intrinsically good and safe in itself, and 
which shall at the same time render the hay or clover palatable 
to the stock fed upon it. This is accomplished by strewing a 
little of the following mixture in the rick, while in process of 
erection : — 
lbs. 
Fenugreek,* powdered 112 
Pimento 4 
Aniseed 4 
Carraways ^ 4 
Cuminc 2 
An outlay of 2^. 6c?. per ton will afford a sufficient application in 
the majority of cases. And that horses or cattle will consume 
the compound in preference to better lots not similarly treated, 
we have had repeated and lengthened observation. An inquiry 
being made as to how it affected the health of the animals fed 
upon it, we were able last season thus to reply, " Our beasts, 
numbering 170 head, came out with more than average bloom in 
spring ; and the cow-doctor's bill, from November to April 
inclusive (the hay-consuming months) has not run over three- 
pence per head." 
As an addendum we present a brief account of haymaldng in 
a part of the country where the' influences of climate present 
about as many difficulties as are often to be met with ; for, after 
all, much more depends upon these influences than on the skill 
of man and the appliances within his reach. Docs any one 
think that the fine green hay of Middlesex, or the useful but 
more highly coloured qualities of the Midland ctiunties, could be 
made in the same way, or even made at all, with the dripping 
skies of Renfrewshire, or the West of Scotland ? A landowner 
in that locality, D. Robie, Esq., Kilbarchan, near Paisley, who 
combines science with practice in an eminent degree, favours us 
for this paper with an account of the plans and practices there 
adopted. 
If we look at the rainfall, we shall find a depth — and also a 
frequency of deposit — which would almost prevent hay being 
* The use of fenugreek in small quantities has also been successfully introduced 
at the Duke of Bedford's Home Farm at Woburn. To store cattle consuming 
much straw-chaff with a moderate allowance of roots and meal, 2 oz. per head per 
day may be given with good effect. It is also useful for fattening oxen. This 
article is sold wholesale, unground, at a very moderate rate, about 1.5Z. per ton. 
When ground and retailed, an enormous profit is charged. Every large farmer 
who has steam-power and millstones should purchase wholesale. The stones will 
be tainted for a while after this work, but the grinding of a few sacks of corn into 
meal for stock would probably set all right. A fair trade in such substances as 
this would soon supersede our much-puffed compounds. — P. H, F. 
