Suggestions for Stock-feeding in the Winter of 1893-94. 457 
by most of the authors. Various substitutes for ordinary litter 
are suggested, and it may therefore be useful to state that an 
investigation conducted at the Jonkoping Experiment Station, 
Sweden, in 1891, into the absorptive power of materials used 
for stable-bedding, gave the following results, the numbers 
showing how many times its own weight of water the water-free 
sample of each material absorbed : — 
Heath litter . . 32 
Oak shavings . . 3-9 
Pine shavings . . 4 - 0 
Birch shavings . 5 3 
Wheat straw . . 3 - 9 
Oat straw . . . 4-1 
Barley straw . . 4-3 
Bye straw . . . 4 9 
Oak leaves . . 3 7 
Birch leaves . . 45 
Moor earth . .15-1 
Peat .... 169 
The papers which follow have not been written upon any set or 
uniform plan, nor have they arisen in response to a stereotyped 
schedule of questions. Rather are they the spontaneous utter- 
ances of the practical men who have been good enough to write 
them, and they thus possess a freshness and an originality which 
could hardly otherwise have been attained. Though in the main 
anticipatory, they are necessarily at the outset somewhat retro- 
spective in character. Moreover, as a local flavour to the opinions 
expressed, and to the practices advocated, is by no means incon- 
sistent with the object in view, it will be useful to associate each 
author with the district from which he writes. The critical 
reader will be prepared, then, to look for differences of opinion, 
such as are bound to find expression when localities as far apart 
as Monmouth and Suffolk, or as Dorset and Norfolk, are brought 
under notice. Furthermore, it is well to remember that the 
papers were written at the beginning of September, as several 
references are made to the date current at the time. 
It is in the hope that stock-feeders may find suggested, 
amongst the following communications, methods which might 
be usefully incorporated with their own winter practice, that 
these papers are laid before them. I am tempted to summarise, 
if ever so briefly, the salient points which are set forth by the 
several writers. I feel, however, that I should be doing the 
reader but an ill-service were I to stand longer between him 
and those who have kindly enunciated a series of practicable 
proposals, based upon actual experience, for carrying live stock 
through what is bound to be, even at the best, an unusually 
difficult and trying winter. 
TV Fream. 
II. 
The majority of farmers in the Eastern and Midland counties 
enter upon the winter with comparatively nothing at command 
