492 Suggestions for Stock-feeding in the Winter of 1893-94. 
found to be extremely useful ; but, where fields afford shelter, 
cattle might be left out in them to a later period of the year 
than is usually permitted, and the store of litter, consequently, 
appreciably economised. 
The possibility of a large extent of failure in the root crops 
has been already alluded to ; but it is also to be feared that if 
the practice, too common in the South of England, be followed 
this year of allowing the crops to remain in the fields without 
protection from the frost, this failure will be accentuated. 
Farmers might take warning from the experience of the last 
two winters, during which roots were extensively rotted by the 
frost. It may not be out of place to urge that swedes should 
be taken up, and pitted in the field in quantities of about two 
loads each, while the turnips should be moulded up between the 
drills by the plough. This last is a beneficial practice common 
both to Scotland and the North of England. 
It is to be hoped that farmers generally have taken advan- 
tage of the early harvest to sow a series of catch crops. Those 
who have done so will, if the winter be at all moderate, be 
relieved from the fear of scarcity and the necessity to pui’chase 
in the critical months of March and April, when the rye will 
have become fit for food. Italian rye-grass (which, in March, 
should have 1 cwt. of nitrate of soda sown per acre), winter 
barley, trifolium, thousand-headed kale, and tares will come in 
due succession to carry stock in safety, and with economy, to the 
end of July. m r( 
J Thos. Stirtox. 
X. 
This is a subject on which I am afraid there is nothing new 
to be said, for every known system of feeding has been practised, 
and is pretty well known. But though there may be nothing 
new, it may be well to point out that there is a wasteful process 
of feeding, and also an economical process. Some people 
certainly get more stock kept on a given quantity of food— and 
get them done better — than others do, and though I do not 
profess to be one of them, I mean to have a good try at economy 
in stock-feeding this winter. The necessity for so doing is too 
obvious to discuss; the mere fact of hay being worth from 71. to 
81. per ton is quite sufficient reason, without going any farther. 
Having in my own case commenced by selling 200 tons of hay, 
the problem to be solved, viz., How to winter our stock, is 
extremely interesting to me, as I have to winter about 400 
head of cattle, 2,000 sheep, and 50 horses, with something like 
half the usual crop of straw, barely an average crop of roots, 
and with three-fourths of the hay sold. 
