Straw as Food for Star l(. 139 
" My plan is to save every particle of chaff on threshing days, store it Up 
in the barn, and twice or thrice a week use about one part in bulk of pulped 
turnips to two of chaff, and so form a good-sized heap, which heats in a few 
hours. We give this daily to the cattle in tumbrils, and generally add to 
the top of each basketful, when given, a few handfuls of crushed linseed- 
and cotton-cake. This is, so far as my knowledge and experience go, the 
readiest, and at the same time the most economical, way of using up the 
pulse and refuse of our white crops." 
Markets, no less than the nature of the soil, affect the solution 
of the question very much in the minds of farmers. In the 
neighbourhood of all large towns, straw commands high rates as 
well as hay, with always a good demand, and it is considered a 
great advantage to be able to sell both. Professor Buckman, 
who farms in a populous, as well as highly fertile, district on 
the borders of Somerset and Dorset, would much prefer to sell 
straw than adopt any extraordinary tactics for its enlarged 
consumption as food. He says : — 
" In this district some of the best straw is used for chaff: more is employed 
in the straw-barton (foldyard) ; but straw is more used here for litter than 
for food. We give best straw in the shape of chaff for all kinds of stock. In 
the strawyard cows get no hay, but the straw is supplemented by from 
2 to 4 lbs. of cake per diem. 
" We supplement our hay -feed with chaff in the stables, but in the straw- 
yard it has no preparation. 
" Straw is very much used for gravid (in-calf) cows, and frequently in both 
Dorset and Somerset without even hay or cake. At the present prices of hay 
and straw, we think it would be much more profitable to sett it than to feed 
it, as there is always a market for it, and no trouble of cartage. Artificial 
manures occupy but a small compass, and in our experience we find them 
much more economical in their use and application, besides being so much 
more certain in their operation than farmyard-dung." 
Mr. Thomas E. Dowden, of Bere Regis, Dorset, although 
residing only some 20 miles from Professor Buckman, farms a 
poorer soil, and, being differently circumstanced, is in the habit 
of consuming a considerable proportion of his straw as food. 
He considers that if his system were more generally adopted 
stocks of sheep and cattle might be increased from 25 to 30 
per cent, in the district. He says : — 
"I have for the last thirty years cut a large quantity of my straw into 
chaff, and thrown over it a sort of gruel, composed of boiled linseed, ground 
Indian corn, or any other meal I can buy cheap. I have found horses, cattle, 
and sheep do well on it; it is not generally practised in this neighbourhood. 
I think it very desirable to make less hay, and to summer-feed, as haymaking 
is a very expensive process." 
Mr. Heber Humfrey, of Kingstone Farm, Shrivenham, Berks, 
the well-known breeder of Berkshire pigs, expresses opinions 
on this question which place the advantages to be derived from 
the removal of restrictions on the sale of straw far above those 
