()9G UfiHsntion of Sira} r an Food for Sfoch. 
digestible. Boiled barley also forms a serviceable addition to 
straw cbaflf for horses, and they are very fond of it. Scientific 
as well as practical men have always deemed it good policy to 
substitute boiled or steeped barley for oats and beans in winter, 
when horses do little work, and nitrogenous food is too heating. 
After the di’oughty year of 1887, when hay and roots were 
both very deficient on a great many farms, several interesting 
experiments on a large scale were carried out by making cattle 
and sheep subsist chiefly on chaffed straw with meals or soups 
added. In the winter succeeding that year Mr. Charles Randell 
fed a very large flock of sheep without giving them a single 
turnip or a bit of hay. On Loi’d Moreton’s farm at Whitfield, 
Gloucestershire, a larger number of grazing steers and heifers 
were bought in than usual to be fattened on a mixed diet of 
which straw chaff formed the most bulky ingredient. Although 
140 acres of cereal grain had been grown on this farm in 1887, 
estimated to yield, on the average, two tons of straw per acre, 
not any of the latter was used as litter, being deemed much too 
valuable for feeding purj^oses. As many as 200 cattle were fed 
that winter, and they consujued nearly 200 tons of straw, first 
reduced to chaff and boiling hot treacle syrup thrown over it. 
after which it was allowed to remain fermenting in heaps for at 
least twenty-four hours before being given to the cattle. This 
system of extensive straw feeding had been a favourite one with 
Lord Moreton and his steward, Mr. John AVatts, for a great 
many years, and has been so ever since, a soup from boiled lin- 
seed being preferred to treacle syrup when linseed can be bought 
at a reasonable price. The usual feeding ration which Mr. 
Watts has found best for fattening cattle consists of as much as 
they can eat of straw chaff after being scalded and fermented, 
and about 100 lb. of roots, 4 lb. of meal, and 4 lb. of oilcake for 
each beast per day. 
In his prize essay on the management of sheep in the Journal, 
Vol. I., 2nd series, 1865, Mr. John Coleman remarks : — 
“ We must make one acre of turnips keep twice as many sheep ns here- 
tofore in a far more healthy condition. Last winter (1864-5) in too many 
cases the difficulty was to find any roots at all, but great and lasting good 
may be anticipated from the evil then felt. I saw many flocks living on 
damp chafl’ with a little artificial food, and doing as well as could be wished. 
I have long desired to see an economical plan of pulping roots devised, as 
the animal might then be induced to eat a large quantity of straw chatl 
rendered palatable and nutritious by a small addition of artificial food. Nor 
would such a system be as extravagant as at first it may appear. Let us 
assume that our crop of turnips equals 15 tons per acre, and that instead of 
201b. per bead we give 101b. (amply sufficient) with lib. of straw chaff 
and I lb. a day each of artificial food, and it follows that 100 sheep will 
consume an acre in thirty-three days, and 7 cwt. of extra food will be spent 
