Suggestions for Stock-feeding in the Winter of 1893-94. 481 
be preferred by some to toppings. (In feeding cows the rations 
will be altered according as the object is to produce milk or 
butter. I may say the above is for butter ; a greater proportion 
of grains would be used, with roots, and less corn, if for milk.) 
Store Cattle. — These we hope to keep in the fields as long 
as possible, after which cut straw and roots must carry them 
through. Where no roots are available a little maize, pea, or bean 
meal can be added, or many would prefer linseed cake with 
straw only, having regard to the weekly cost per head. One 
farmer has fed largely both store and fat cattle and sheep on 
pure linseed oil mixed with straw chaff, varying the quantity 
from half a pint upwards per meal per beast ; the price now 
quoted is Is. 11c?. per gallon on rail. 
Fat Cattle. — Stall feeding will be almost impracticable, 
there being nothing with which to make dung, which is often 
the chief end to be attained. Instead of our usual fat Christmas 
beasts, we must carry the animals on through the winter as best 
we can, rather as stores, and make beef when the early green 
crops and grasses come in, leaving other districts — where the 
meadows are good enough to feed beasts fat, with the aid of 
artificial foods — to supply our Christmas requirements. 
Sheep. — If only we get rain enough 1 to carry on the present 
growth of green crops, and late-sown turnips, to perfection, less 
difficulty may be experienced in wintering the flock than would 
at first sight appear. A dry flock with plenty of roots, a little 
cotton cake, or an equivalent in corn or malt dust, will store 
well, and even fatten with a little extra time given, and 
additional corn, which, at the present low value, and in view 
of the favourable terms upon which sheep at the early fairs were 
purchased, will leave a margin for profit. 
Last year I lambed 500 ewes, producing over 600 lambs. 
The ewes had a very few roots drawn to them on the pastures 
daily, and some straw chaff in their troughs each morning till 
they had lambed. We had a few lambs at Christmas, the rest 
falling in January. I then added a little hay to the straw chaff, 
giving the ewes their fill of turnips, and 1 lb. linseed cake daily, 
and the lambs — as soon as old enough to eat it — white peas, 
and cake broken very fine indeed, in their troughs in front of 
the ewes. The hay was discontinued as the hard weather we 
experienced broke, and I had no difficulty in fattening the 
whole of the lambs, and selling them at an average price of 36s., 
1 Everything must depend upon rain, as, unless we get it in abundance, 
the grass and roots will dry up, and what Berkshire, Hampshire, and other 
similarly situated counties will then do with sheep it is most difficult to say'; 
it must lead to disastrous consequences. 
