Suggestions for Stock-feeding in the Winter of 1893-94. 473 
have given so few novel ideas as to the best mode of meeting 
the trials of the coming winter. But in a year like this, I know 
that my brother farmers tolerate any advice, however homely it 
may be, so I hope that among so much dust and chaff they 
may extract at least one grain of information or comfort. If 
any stockfeeder can find that one useful grain, I shall be well 
pleased and amply rewarded. 
Clare Sewell Read. 
Y. 
How to winter their cow stock is the problem which is now 
causing thousands of dairy farmers to metaphorically scratch 
their heads day after day. In my part of the county of Stafford 
this anxiety is neither so keen nor so general as it is a few 
miles to the south of us, where forage is scarce, and, indeed, in 
other counties which are south of the degree of latitude in which 
this district is situated. This section of the country is admitted 
by those who have travelled about to have taken less harm 
from the drought, and to have had better crops of hay, than 
perhaps any other locality to the south of it. But even here 
there are men whose hay crop is not more than half an average, 
and these it is who are now “cudgelling their brains” as to 
what is the best thing to do with their cattle from November 
to May. Others there are, not a few, who have from 70 to 80 
per cent, of an average crop, and yet others — not many of these 
— who have one that is a fair average. And so it is throughout 
the district — the effects of the drought have been most variable, 
and, as a rule, worst of all in meadows that were eaten up late 
in the spring, and in such as were nipped by the late spring 
frosts in the valleys. Crops, generally speaking, were much 
better in meadows that lie away from the rivers, away up the 
slopes, and even on the tops of the hills. 
There were little “ cobs ” of hay left on many farms when last 
winter came to an end — the drought had enabled us to save 
them. But as a rule they are rather diminutive, and will not 
count for much in the time that is coming. Yet, however, as 
“ every little helps,” they will be made the most of, and are now 
regarded as bits of old gold ! Old hay, old straw, indeed, old 
anything that will serve as food for stock, possesses a higher 
value now than it ever did before, so far as I can recall the past. 
We who are now at the helm of affairs on the farms have not 
known a time when, so far as we can see at present, such close 
economy has been practised as will be the case in the coming 
fall and winter. It sometimes occurs that a famine foreseen is 
averted ; there never was one more clearly foreseen than the 
