122  Experiments  of  the  late  Mr.  James  Mason. 
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trials,  but  as  he  was  not  workino;  out  any  new  ideas  in  this 
direction  it  will  he  sufficient  to  discuss  the  results  very  Indefly. 
Each  year  as  stock  were  bought  in  to  fatten  off,  careful  records 
were  kept  of  the  food  consumed  and  the  rate  of  increase  in 
live  weight,  and  a series  of  comparisons  was  made  season 
by  season  to  ascertain  the  relative  financial  results  of  high  or 
low  feeding,  the  use  of  concentrated  or  of  coarse  fodders,  the 
effect  of  age  in  the  stock,  &c.  At  the  close  of  each  trial 
statistics  were  taken  out  of  the  amount  and  nature  of  the  food 
consumed,  and  balance-sheets  were  drawn  uj)  showing  both  the 
financial  results,  and  the  number  of  digestible  food  units 
which  had  been  recpiired  for  maintenance  and  for  the  increase 
of  live  weight.  Table  TIT.  shows  the  record  of  one  such  ex- 
periment, where  seventeen  bullocks  at  grass  in  the  summer  of 
1897  were  also  supplied  with  green  lucerne  and  concentrated 
foods  in  the  shape  of  cake  and  corn.  A com|)arison  is  drawn 
between  these  results  and  others  obtained  in  exi)eriments  at 
Hohenheim  and  Woburn  respectively,  where,  however,  the 
cattle  were  entirely  stall  fed. 
The  comparisons,  indeed,  are  vitiated  by  the  different 
conditions  under  which  the  experiments  were  carried  out,  as 
Sir  John  Lawes  states  in  a note  on  the  detailed  account  of 
these  trials  which  Mr.  Mason  had  sent  to  him.  He  wrote — 
It  is  well  known  that  oxen  on  pasture  will  increase  much  faster  on  grass 
alone  during  the  summer  months  than  they  will  increase  later  on  with  cake 
in  addition.  It  is  quite  clear  that  the  manure  values  of  the  foods  have  been 
calculated  too  high,  and  that  there  has  been  a loss  in  tlie  feeding  due 
chietiy  to  the  purchasing  iirice  being  much  too  high. 
This  latter  sentence  touches  the  weak  spot  of  the  bullock 
feeding  trials  ; although  they  showed  very  clearly  that  rapid 
feeding  to  comparatively  young  stock  succeeded  much  better 
than  a slower  method  with  a lower  ration  of  concentrated  food 
and  older  bea.sts,  also  that  the  lucerne  and  silage  raised  in  such 
(juantities  on  the  estate  formed  effective  stock  foods  ; yet  they 
rarely  showed  a profit  for  bullock  feeding  uidess  an  excessive 
credit  were  taken  for  the  manure.  The  trials,  in  fact,  from  a 
financial  standpoint  were  vitiated  by  the  want  of  the  skilled 
grazier’s  eye  in  the  buying  and  selling. 
Mr.  Mason  early  arri\  ed  at  the  conclusion  that  pigs  could 
be  made  the  most  profitable  kind  of  liv(‘  stock  ; he  kept  very 
large  numbers  of  Tamworfh-Berkshirc'  crosses  in  the  fields. 
There  the  j)igs  were  allowed  to  graze  at  will,  just  having  a 
