170 
Hie Proper Office of Straro on a Farm. 
Mr. Pusey called attention to the fact that, examined under the 
recognised heads of chemical analysis, it was equal to linseed, 
then the only oil-cake in use for feeding, in its constituents. 
The practical man has never been able to extract as much 
virtue out of it as out of linseed-cake (unless it be for dairy pur- 
poses), and that perhaps chiefly in consequence of its heating 
(qualities and pungent taste, properties of which the analysis took 
no account. And yet its merits for food are so far recognised, 
that some farmers, myself among the number, think it almost 
a sinful waste to drill in nice fresh rape-cake as manure. 
In like manner, toughness of structure and unpleasantness of 
flavour may have stood in the way of the use of bean-straw ; yet 
the first objection may be overcome, and the second perhaps 
even converted into an auxiliary, in like manner as so many acids 
and bitters have been converted into stimulants. 
On some few clay farms, where roots are scarce and a breed- 
ing flock is kept, the value of bean straw has been partially 
recognised as winter stover for the ewes, which, however, only 
pick over the dried leaves and smaller stalks at the barn-door ; 
but in this manner, as also when it is furnished to cart 
horses for winter stover, but little of the crop is consumed as 
food, the great bulk being converted at once into manure. 
No observations on this subject, however incomplete, especi- 
Jilly if they would guard against exaggerated estimates as to the 
convertibility of straw into flesh and fat, can pass without notice 
the feeding experiments of Mr. Horsfall. 
That gentleman has undoubtedly had great success with his 
stall-feeding, on a system in which straw plays a very important 
part ; and undoubtedly he has rendered great service to agricul- 
ture, by the public-spirited manner in which he has been at the 
pains to communicate the results of his valuable experience to 
the world at large. 
His practice combines two or three distinguishable and pecu- 
liar features : — 
1st. His food is chiefly steamed ; and much may depend on 
the sound discretion exercised, as to the amount both of moisture 
and of heat to be left in the mixture at feeding time. 
When I have known the steaming process to be imperfectly 
tried, the animals became restless, and the food passed too quickly 
through them, probably from want of due precaution in these 
respects. 
Again, the materials used by him under the denomination of 
straw are various, and generally blended together; so that it 
remains uncertain to which, or to the combination of which, 
the chief merit of the result is due. • 
He uses wheat-straw ; and, again, the husks of the oat (not 
