Straw as Foal for Stock. 
135 
my farm one-fourth part of the straw grown is used as chaff for food for 
cattle and sheep, about equal quantities for each. The horses have only 
wheat- and barley-chaff as made by the machine. 
" I never use straw for sheep in any other way than taking chaff from the 
chaff-barn, putting the chaff in the troughs and scattering the cake and corn 
on it ; if it is for stock ewes which have no corn, I give them the chaff just 
as it comes from the barn ; but sometimes, when the chaff is not so good as 
usual, I mix a little malt-dust with it. For cattle I used it one or two years 
fermented by boiling the cake and meal, and then pouring it while hot on to 
a bed of chaff ; this answered very well, but the butchers complained of the 
quality of the beef when so fed. 
" I am now using treacle for cattle, allowing about one pint per head, which 
is put in a tub of cold water stirred up well with a broom, then poured on 
the bed of chaff and corn from a water-pot with a rose on ; this answered 
very well last year, and I am trying the same again this year. 1 do not use 
any roots, so the treacle is to moisten the chaff instead. I consider, at the 
present price of labour and the great price of butcher's meat, many farmers 
would do well to leave the roots on the land and fold them off with sheep, 
ivhere the land is not too strong, rather than go to the great expense of 
cleaning and carting them off for cattle which can be fattened by other means. 
" By using a large quantity of chaff for sheep, and folding all my roots on 
the land, I can now keep one-and-a-half sheep per acre ; but a few years ago, 
when the sheep had hardly any chaff, and roots were carted off for bullocks, 
one sheep per acre was enough. Economy in litter might be ensured by 
covered-in yards, and more still by stacking the straw more carefully. Many 
careless people allow it to get half-rotten before it gets into the yards. Con- 
suming more straw renders it desirable to make less hay and to summer-feed 
some of the meadow land. 
" The system, as described by my father in the ' Journal,' has very much 
increased, and those who have tried it are very pleased with the results. On 
this farm, which consists of 850 acres of arable land, I cut into chaff every 
year 100 or more acres of mown wheat or oat straw, just as described in the 
4 Journal ' ; but I use pulped mangold instead of tares, rye, &c, as I can depend 
better upon the quantity of moisture contained in it ; and an improved 
method costs me less than half what the work used to cost on the same farm 
as described by my father. In the first place, the three men for moving the 
straw from the barn works to the chaff-box are done away with by putting the 
chaff-box close up to the barnworks, only having a small boy with a forked 
stick to push the straw to the man feeding the chaff-box. Secondly, I had 
Mr. Maynard to make a long elevator for the chaff-box, so that it puts the 
chaff into the barn instead of three men carrying it there in bags. By this 
means I cut straw into chaff and deliver it into the barn with less hands 
than are usually employed to stack the straw. 
" The reason I have written such a long account is to show what a great 
value I put on straw cut into chaff as a means of enabling farmers to keep 
more stock, which at the present price of corn is the only means of profit left 
to him. 
" Secondly, to explain what a very little trouble and expense is now 
required to get such a valuable article of food." 
From the above it appears that mangold-pulp has been 
deemed preferable to green stuff for mixing with the straw-chaff 
to cause the necessary fermentation ; and if the food thus pre- 
pared comes out when required for use having the same 
quality and flavour as are obtained by the admixture of small 
quantities of green clover, vetches, or rye, no doubt the change 
