474 Suggestions for Stock-feeding in the Winter of 1893-94. 
famine in forage which now hangs like a cloud on the horizon, 
and we shall do our best to avert it. 
Fortunately, however, grass has grown apace in the early 
autumn, and while the aftermath has thriven well in the 
meadows, many pastures have filled up nicely with food for the 
fall of the year. Nevertheless, it must be remembered that 
grass seldom makes much headway after September sets in. 
Very much depends on the “ grassiuess ” of the autumn, and on 
the “ openness ” of the weather till Christmas. These two con- 
ditions, indeed, may yet turn out to be of the highest value to 
livestock farmers, for, although corn and cake are cheap, it is 
not exactly pleasant to be compelled to buy twice or thrice as 
much of them as one ought to do. Our men are aware that the 
demand for surplus milch cattle that are going dry, and for lean 
cattle of any kind, whether barren or in-calf, will be even less 
than it was in 1887, for the simple but all-sufficient reason that 
the usual customers for those classes of stock have no straw or 
hay to spare for the purpose of wintering them. Roots, no 
doubt, will be pretty good, and perhaps fairly plentiful, but 
cattle cannot be wintered on roots alone. The fact consequently 
looms out that dairy farmers will either have to winter their 
own surplus stock as best they can, or sell them during the fall 
of the year at a deplorable and ruinous sacrifice. 
The question therefore arises : What is the best course to 
pursue? In the fall of 1887, after the hot drought of the summer, 
cattle were abnormally low in price ; and, happening to have in 
a barn a bit of old hay that really wanted eating, the bottom 
part of it being five years old or more, I thought I would try an 
experiment of wintering cattle on a minimum quantity of hay, 
and I did so because I had a fair amount of grass on the land to 
serve in the stead of hay. It is seldom that summer graziers 
winter many cattle, or indeed any, save a few cows in milk for 
household requirements ; they prefer, as a rule, that other men, 
whose purpose it suits, should do the wintering. But in the 
fall of the year named I decided to depart from the usual 
custom and to try the aforesaid experiment. I bought, there- 
fore, half a score of young barren cattle, chiefly heifers, and had 
them running out on the land every day, and all day, through- 
out the winter, unless the weather was altogether abominable. 
I really bought fourteen, but four of them were sold early ; 
these, however, were replaced soon afterwards by seven or eight 
others, and do not interfere with the principle of the experi- 
ment. In the daytime these half-score cattle — and most of the 
others too — were picking up the greater part of their living on 
the land ; in the night time they were housed and tied by the 
