166 
The Proper Office of Straw on a Farm. 
the other hand, the short stuff from the barley-thrashing- contri- 
butes considerably to the subsistence of the horses, and spares 
cut chaff, whether it may have been taken into account in the 
bulk of the barley crop, or not. 
Now if 10 horses consumed 10 lbs. a-piece of chaff daily 
during say 8 months of 30 days (240 days), they would consume 
10 tons 14 cwt. in all. I calculate therefore that they consume 
at least 1 ton of straw a-piece in the course of the year as cut 
chaff 
Next, in the case of cow-stock, when these are economically 
fed, in those parts of England where the proportion of arable land 
is large, not less than 1 ton per head of straw should be assigned 
to them as food ; for a cow having little else to live upon will 
consume nearly 40 lbs. a-day of straw. Growing steers or 
heifers, moderately supplied with corn or cake (say 3 or 4 lbs.) 
and roots, without hay, would probably consume half this quan- 
tity of straw. Our author speaks of 14 and 18 lbs. of half hay 
half straw chaff as consumed by fatting oxen under cover, or in 
open yards. Mr. Horsfall's cows appear to be supplied with 
about 10 lbs. of wheat or oat straw per day, besides bean-straw 
and from 10 lbs. to 12 lbs. of hay. 
From these and like premises I conclude that cattle will, on 
the average, eat with advantage 10 lbs. per day of straw-chaff for 
say 8 months, or 240 days ; or 1 ton 1 cwt. in the year. 
The question further arises, how much straw will be profitably , 
consumed by sheep where a feeding flock is kept on 400 acres 
of arable ? 
I do not, on a hasty reference to Mr, Bond's excellent paper 
on Stock Farming (read before the Central Farmer's Club in 
1858), find any distinct answer to this question ; but the perusal 
of this paper led me to note, in my own book, the dietary of my 
flock of 13 score of ewes and lambs at the end of March, 1859. 
The ewes were then eating 5 fans of chaff with 1 sack of malt- 
combs ; the lambs went forward, and had 4 stone of meal a-day 
besides. The fan represented approximately 6 bushels of 6 lbs. 
each, or 36 lbs. ; so that the ewes ate 180 lbs. a day, or nearly | lb. 
a-piece. Such an allowance, continued over 100 days, would 
require, as nearly as may be, 8 tons of straw. Besides the ewes 
I had about 120 ewe hoggets, which probably ate nearly -J lb. 
of cut chaff, when the old ewe ate | lb. per day : 100 such hog- 
gets Avould, at that rate, cat 5000 lbs. in 100 days, or upwards 
of 2 tons. 80 fatting wethers also consumed a considerable 
amount of cut straw-chaff with their cake ; but as the amount 
of straw-chaff eaten by sheep varies very much with the weather 
and the temperature, I shall content myself by asserting that 8 
