456 Suggestions for Sioch-feeding in the Winter of 1S93-94. 
am are more fitted to give advice tliereon. Therefore, I pass over the next 
few weeks in silence, as they embrace a period which has never given me 
such great anxiety or trouble as is referred to in the old couplet — 
March will search, and April try, 
but May’s the month your cattle die. 
If kept on short commons, dry husky fodder must be avoided. As stock 
crave for dry, warm, stimulating food in early winter, so they pine for moist, 
nourishing, digestible food in spring. Nothing, in my opinion, meets the 
requirement like sweet chaff with the best linseed cake. Such food will 
maintain health through March, and ward off red water and blain on turning 
out in April and May. But this feeding must not be stopped hastily. “ Two 
flails and the cuckoo going together ” have gladdened the heart of many a 
husbandman, — it means a bit of corn and fodder to finish the winter season. 
The last communication I need quote is from a correspondent 
who has for the last twenty years farmed nearly 1,500 acres on 
the borders of Somerset and Wiltshire : — 
My own plan, when short of keep, is to put in as much rye as possible. 
My sheep were feeding on rye last winter from November till April, and did 
well on it with :} lb. cake. For dry food I have found Mr. Jonas’s plan, 
described in your Journal, 1 a very good one : that is, cutting green oats, 
grass or clover, with straw, two men putting up the straw and a boy the 
green stuff. In the droughty year of 1868 I had a lot of stuff put away by 
the same method for the winter, but was so short of keep that my ewes ate 
it in July. 
With regard to the use of linseed oil as food for stock, I am 
indebted to General Viscount Bridport, G.C.B., for the details of 
management on his home farm at Cricket St. Thomas, Somerset, 
where this material is employed in winter feeding with highly 
satisfactory results. The method followed is to mix one quart 
of linseed oil with one gallon of boiling water. This is poured 
from a watering-pot with rose over a heap of about four 
bushels of chaff. It is found convenient to make the mixture 
the day previous to use, and the quantity mentioned is enough 
for eight beasts. All kinds of stock, however — horses, cattle, 
and sheep — were fed last winter in this way, and through- 
out the season the horses were free from colic or gripes. The 
oil was bought in London at Is. lid a gallon, free on rail, and 
was sent out in tins and barrels. Calling the price 2s. a gallon, 
one quart would cost 6d. ; and as this is sufficient for a meal 
for eight beasts, the outlay for oil would be fd per head. 
Linseed oil will continue to be used on Lord Bridport’s farm 
throughout the coming winter, as experience proves that a con- 
siderable saving in the food bill is thereby effected. 
It will be found, in the succeeding pages, that the use of straw 
as bedding or litter, in such a season as the present, is condemned 
StranCliaff, by Samuel Jonas. Journal (2nd Series), Vol. YI., 1870. 
