Suggestions for Stock-feeding in the Winter of 1893-94. 489 
are now unable to profitably realise upon their stock, since 
scarcity of supply has so greatly advanced the price of the ordi- 
nary fodders that buyers of cattle refuse to purchase at anything 
like the usual figures, fearing that the cost of keep will make it 
impossible to hold stock profitably through the winter. 
Farmers are therefore reduced to this position : they must 
either sell their cattle at a loss, or carry them through the 
winter with the usual but at present expensive fodders. Failing 
either of these alternatives, they must employ every means that 
experience can dictate and information can furnish to keep stock 
with such fodders as may afford efficient and cheap substitutes 
for those now so costty, and in some cases altogether unavailable. 
In face of the present ruinous prices, and notwithstanding the 
fodder difficulty, there should be no hesitation in declaring that 
stock should undoubtedly be held, more especially as it may be 
reasonably anticipated that with the spring of 1894 prices of all 
kinds of stock are almost certain to advance, the reason being 
that, according to the official returns, 1 there has been an appre- 
ciable reduction upon last year’s numbers of cattle and sheep in 
Great Britain. 
Sheep form the most important branch of Hampshire stock- 
farming, and the rule of the county has been to make extensive 
use of clover-hay for food, the straw being converted into 
manure, or more usually sold. But it is apparent, that in the 
present exceptional circumstances, this practice must be varied 
to a very considerable extent. The straw, reduced to chaff, 
must now take its proper and rational place in the feeding 
of both sheep and cattle. Indeed, the scarcity of hay, and the 
consequent higher prices that may be obtained for it, must 
constrain all practical farmers to admit that it is better to sell 
the greater part of that which has been secured, rather than to 
use it altogether for feed at home ; and this with stronger 
reason because experience has proved that for cattle the straw 
chaff with pulped roots makes an efficient and nutritious sub- 
stitute. Certainly there need be no doubt of the nutritive 
character of this season’s straw, as the bulk of it failed to reach 
the usual uniformity of ripeness. In addition, it is fortunate 
that all kinds of straw, as well as seed, pea, and vetch haulm, 
have been harvested under a scorching sun, and are conse- 
quently sweet and good for food. For their sheep Hampshire 
farmers will have neither silage nor roots, worth mentioning, 
to supply to any extent the place of the clover-hay, which it is 
advised that they should sell. It is therefore imperative upon 
1 See p. 655, 
