Strain as Food for Stock. 
127 
growing custom to economise the consumption of hay by flocks 
in the depth of winter by giving fattening hoggets a mixture of 
hay- and straw-chaff, and allowing ewes access to loose straw 
placed in cribs or racks. 
The increase in the employment of straw as fodder for sheep 
has, however, been small, compared to the change which has 
brought this product more extensively into use in the feeding <>i 
cattle. The revolution in the meat-market which has marked 
the past quarter of a century had the effect of bringing oilcakes 
and other rich auxiliary feeding-stuffs into more general em- 
ployment, particularly in winter. Shrewd grazing-fanners were 
not slow in making the discovery that the most economical 
method of producing beef is to limit the supply of roots to at 
least half the quantity the animals would devour in the absence 
of other food, and make up the remainder with dry substances of 
two entirely opposite descriptions : the first, highly nutritious, 
consisting of oilcake, meal, or some other rich oleaginous, fari- 
naceous, or saccharine compound, given in quantities con- 
formable to the animal's powers of assimilation ; the second, a 
bulky, sweet, wholesome food to satisfy the demands of the 
bovine system for bulk of provender. The stomach of the ox 
is large, and must be satisfied by some means. Either hay or 
good straw fodder will do equally well so far as the tastes and 
organic requirements of the bullock are concerned ; but to 
ensure perfect economy in feeding, the former had needs be 
either sparsely used or abandoned altogether, and straw or 
chaff be made the filling-up substance. 
The same principle holds good in an equal degree in the 
winter feeding of young cattle and dairy cows. Hay, which has 
been so generally employed in the past in feeding the latter after 
they have calved and the former throughout the season, is a far 
more costly commodity for either kind of stock than a mixed 
diet of cotton-cake, roots, and straw. If this were better under- 
stood, less hay would no doubt be made ; and grass crops, at 
present appropriated to the manufacture of hay, would be more 
generally utilised as food for stock in summer, which would 
allow the proportion of stock to the acreage to be considerably 
increased. In fact, the question of the utilisation of straw as 
food affords economical suggestions at every step in the inquiry. 
The interesting statement of Mr. Coleman in regard to the 
management of cattle on Lord Wenlock's farm, at Escrick, shows 
to what an extent the number of animals might be increased 
by a greater proportion of the straw being consumed as food ; 
and other statements have been furnished to me, all tending to 
prove how largely this might be made to serve the interests of 
farm economy. 
