Straw as Food for Stock. 121* 
with chopped straw. There may not he much goodness in straw, but animals 
require filling. They will not feed on cake and meal alone, any more than 
we could thrive on meat without bread and vegetables. I believe in a mixture 
of food, but both quantity and quality arc needed." 
Arthur Young remarks in his ' Calendar,' which was issued at 
the commencement of the present century, that the best farmers 
of Norfolk were then agreed that cattle should eat no straw unless 
cut into chaff and mixed with hay ; but, on the contrary, that 
they should be fed with something better and have the straw 
thrown under them to be trodden into dung. This was en- 
lightened opinion for those times, when comparatively few roots 
were grown, and it was not customary to use much oilcake in 
feeding. That Norfolk farmers have advanced with the times is 
fully shown by the following statement which Mr. C. S. Read, 
M.P., has been good enough to furnish me with : — 
" I am not aware that any farmer in East Norfolk has tried the plan recom- 
mended by the late Mr. Jonas in the ' Royal Agricultural Society's Journal.' 
Barns are not so large or so numerous in this part of Norfolk as they are in 
some districts, and they are mostly all filled with corn at harvest. Mr. Jonas's 
plan, if I remember rightly, was to fill the barns with chaff in the summer, 
and consume it the following winter. Whether the farmers in Norfolk are 
afraid of cuttiog up green fodder with the straw, or they do not care to have 
their barns occupied for so long a period, the experiment has been rarely, if 
ever, tried in this district. But the custom of cutting straw into chaff has 
•extensively prevailed for some years. Cattle are now mostly fed on roots cut 
with Gardner's turnip-cutters, and it is a common practice to mix with the 
roots a quantity of corn and straw-chaff. The chaff is more extensively used 
when the cattle are first placed in the yards, and is gradually modified in 
quantity as the cattle increase in weight, or sometimes a quantity of hay is 
mixed with straw, and so the chaff is made more palatable and nutritious. 
The usual plan is to hire one of Maynard's, or some other good chaff-cutter, 
which is frequently kept by those who let out steam threshing-machines. 
The chaff is trodden into a barn, and is sometimes mixed with salt or malt- 
dust, but more generally nothing is added. 
" No doubt the straw-chaff softens and mellows when a large quantity of 
it is kept some time before it is used. A slight fermentation usually tak§s 
place, and this is certainly increased by a judicious admixture of salt. But 
the chaff is often used directly it is cut, and mixed with roots for a short time 
before being given to the cattle. A fermentation is thus set up, and the 
mixture is given warm to the cattle. 
" In those parts of Norfolk where most of the roots are consumed in the 
yards, and only a small portion on the land, this system of using straw-chaff 
is rarely adopted. It is more common where the major part of the roots is 
consumed in the field, and only a small portion is removed to the homestead 
for grazing cattle. The more extended growth of mangold wurtzel also 
increases the consumption of straw-chaff, as the mangold can be thus used at 
all seasons of the year, whereas it was formerly thought dangerous, or at 
least disadvantageous, to consume that root alone during the winter months. 
"No doubt many more cattle, especially store bullocks, can be kept where 
straw-chaff is used, but its greatest value is where straw is plentiful, and 
roots are scarce. In a season like this, straw is so short a crop that cattle in 
open yards can scarcely be kept decently littered ; therefore as roots are plen- 
VOL. XIII.— S. S. K 
