Suggestions for Stock-feeding in the Winter of 1898-94. 479 
animals were treading in with their feet sweet barley straw 
and oat straw, given out daily by the men who were hand- 
threshing in the adjacent barns, — material which, if chaffed 
as now, and mixed with roots or other feeding stuffs, would have 
made excellent fodder, whilst a large portion of the hay could have 
been sold. Then, again, we thought it good business to supply 
hotel yards and other stables with straw, merely taking back 
the dung, without any money payment. I often in those days 
heard it said that a pig was the best animal to eat straw, 
meaning, of course, that he would not eat any, the whole going 
for manure. All this is very much a thing of the past ; reduced 
prices and vanishing profits have made men wiser in their 
generation. 
Turning now to the more important question of how best 
to deal with our very short output of hay and straw, it is evi- 
dent that a mild open winter, with an abundance of grass in 
the meadows and pastures, such as I hope we may get, would 
prove a very great blessing, and carry us with our stock well 
into the New Year. Then the difficulty would be how to hold 
our own till May-da}’. 
In speaking first on the question of hay as an article of 
consumption, the very price it is now worth in my neighbour- 
hood, say, from 81. to 10Z. per ton, appears to me to almost 
render it impossible for a farmer to consume his hay to a profit, 
when by selling it at this high price, and spending the money 
in corn and other feeding stuffs, he can carry a greater number 
of stock, and with better results. Then comes the danger 
lest farmers, pressed as they necessarily must be for money, and 
with corn making so little, will turn the hay into cash and for- 
get to bring back the equivalent, to the detriment alike of the 
cattle and of the land. Straw, again, at its present market 
price, and very short quantity, cannot, so far as I can see, be 
used for litter in the ordinary way. Much of the wheat straw 
will be sold, like the hay, and the barley, oat, and other straw 
and haulm will be chaffed for the stock. In many cases where 
the barley and oat crops were backward and light, it might be 
economy, instead of threshing, to pass the entire produce, grain 
and straw, through the chaff-cutter for the stock. A large area 
of the pea crop has been cut green and stacked, to be used as 
fodder in the same way. 
All this must cause a very short make of farmyard dung, 
which will be sorely felt next spring and autumn. In districts 
like my own, where fern or bracken grows in large quantities, 
by cutting this when green and stacking it in ricks, it 
will help very much to keep the horses off the bare bricks 
