494 Suggestions for Stock-feeding in the Winter of 1893-94. 
50 or 60 acres will produce somewhat less, but if this growing 
weather continues the grass produced by this land will very 
much simplify my stock-keeping through the coming winter. 
Of course this growth of late grass is quite unusual, but almost 
invariably follows a hot dry summer; the tropical heat, combined 
with the moisture of the past month, has made grass grow as I 
have only known it once or twice before in my life, — 1868 was 
the nearest approach to it. 
I have not been long in making up my mind that hay at pre- 
sent prices is the dearest article a farmer can consume, and that 
unless he has a milk contract, or for some reason or other he feels 
bound to retain his stock, he had better dispose of it at almost 
any sacrifice rather than feed on hay. For this reason I sold the 
whole of my hay on two farms, reserving only a moderate quan- 
tity where I have a milk contract to carry out, and a few show 
Shorthorns, which will no doubt require a little, though the bulk 
of the Shorthorns will fare as “ ordinary ” stock. 
Another conclusion I have also come to, though not without 
reluctance, is that the chaffcutter will have to be used exten- 
sively this year. Generally speaking, I am not a believer in the 
system of chopping straw and pulping roots for cattle. I think 
the extra cost in labour and the inferior doing of the cattle, to 
say nothing of the extra actual dead losses caused by indigestion, 
&c., far exceed the advantages derived in the greater economy 
of food. I think (again speaking generally) that it is better 
to allow cattle to eat their straw in its natural state (and the 
roots separately), when they will consume what is good and 
wholesome, and the refuse will go for litter, rather than compel 
them to eat a lot of indigestible stuff (positively injurious to 
health), and buy peat moss or sawdust for litter, or, as I have 
often seen, litter with straw as good as that laboriously cut into 
chaff’ to feed them. It would, in my opinion, be better to chaff 
the litter and feed with the long straw. 
But in this season, owing to absolute necessity, everything 
grown on the farm must be consumed, and a deal more besides. 
In my own case, oats were cut green for ha}', perhaps a ton per 
acre, and the ground planted, some of it with mustard, some with 
thousand-headed cabbage, which will at all events keep the sheep 
off the pastures at a critical time, and allow my grass to go 
for silage. Wheat, cut very green, was about half a crop. 
Winter barley, also cut very green, was a light crop. The straw 
of all this must be mixed with the hay, and cut into chaff, and 
none of the stock allowed to eat long hay. In addition to this, 
cows in-milk will get 10 lb. or more of artificial food, probably 
a mixture of bran, maize meal, and cotton cake in about equal 
