460 Practical Experiences in the Preparation of Food for Stoch, 
IFor Schedule of Questions, see page 448.] 
Mr. Robert Turnbull — continued. 
straw and hay are inferior in quality tlirough long exposure in harvesting, 
the quality can he raised to the right standard by the admixture of meal 
and linseed. Some cattle ■will well-nigh starve rather than eat inferior hay 
and straw unchafled and unmixed with meal or roots. Hay and straw, 
when harvested very dry, are more readily digested after being chaffed and 
mixed with roots or linseed, and allowed to stand 24 hours before being fed 
to the stock. 
8. Linseed-cake, crushed ; pea-meal ; the Driffield Company's undecorti- 
cated cotton-cake ; malt culms ; crushed oats ; bean-meal ; cotton-cake in 
the early summer months, and when roots are plentiful ; linseed-cake when 
grass is scarce ; bean-meal in preference to cotton-cake when beans are 
cheap. My experience of cotton-cake is that it helps to make butter firm, 
but when fed regularly to cows it weakens their breeding powers. Sweet 
skim milk : when cattle are in low condition skim milk and cod-liver oil 
are amongst the best restoratives. Treacle to dairy cows for a week before 
and after calving, 
9. The proportion of each description of food must be regulated by the 
weather and the end in view, A liberal supply of carrots in severe weather. 
Cows: in winter, 5.30 a.m., long hay; 6, Imseed-cake ; 8, chaff", pulped 
roots, &c. ; 11, ditto ; 3 p.m., ditto ; 5, long hay. 
10. Horses : clover, hay, carrots, crushed oats, bran, and 1 lb. of linseed- 
cake daily to cart-horses, wheat-straw, oat-straw. Dairy stock : clover and 
meadow hay, linseed-cake, oats, bran, Indian corn, carrots, swedes, golden 
tankard mangold, cabbages, tares, pea-meal, oat-straw (if well got, not 
otherwise). Fattening cattle : winter-sliced swedes, oat-straw and hay 
chaffed and mixed with meal, long hay at night. Fat cattle thrive better on 
sliced roots than when fed ou pulped roots ; sliced roots appear to cause a 
better flow of saliva than pulped food, and as stalled cattle get no exercise 
this is a very important consideration. The sweet juice of swedes appears 
to agree better with fat cattle than pulped roots that are slightly fermented. 
Fat cattle, after eating sliced roots, rest and sleep more contentedly than 
after a meal of pulped food. Sheep : white turnips in the early winter, 
then swedes, hay and pea-meal, malt culms and cake, the proportion depend- 
ing on the weather. Swine : boiled potatoes and barley-meal. 
11. Constant change of pasture. I prefer to stock heavily early in the 
season, and to graze cattle not under two at May-day that have good coats 
and are fully 50 per cent, carcass weight to begin with. I prefer cattle to 
have never been housed or in a covered yard, and cattle never to have tasted 
artificial food. Cattle reared on milk, grass, and hay, I find graze better 
than cattle raised in the turnip and straw districts. No cattle graze better 
than Cumberland bullocks, which are usually fed on grass in summer and on 
hay of prime quality in winter. Rock salt shoidd be placed in every pas- 
ture. In very hot weather, when flies are about, both fat cattle and dairy 
cattle should be put in cool yards in the heat of the day, and should be 
supplied with tares, ryegrass, clover, lucerne, &c. I always like to have a 
ryegrass pasture in May and June, to put young cattle and calves in when 
old pastures have a scouring effect. Ilyegrass is much safer than cotton- 
cake for young stock. 
12. No. I keep pastures well eaten down, believing that grass contains 
more nutriment when it first springs than at any other stage of growth. 
Pastures are cleared for a fortnight at a time, or longer in dry weather. 
Stocked at May-day, after the first month they are rarely grazed more than a 
fortnight together, I attach great importance to a constant supply of pure 
