350 
THE CULTIVATOR. 
REMEDY FOR COWS SUCKING THEMSELVES.—(Fig. 97. 
A subscriber inquires for apian to prevent cows from 
sucking themselves. We give the above cut and the fol¬ 
lowing description, as the best plan we have met with. 
It was furnished for the Cultivator by R. North, Jr., of 
Berlin, Conn., in 1842. 
Description .—A and B, in the cut, represent two ox¬ 
bows, of a size suitable for the animal for which it is 
intended. The bow marked B, should be a little the 
largest, corresponding with he size of the neck at the 
shoulders. C and D, represent the yoke or neck piece. 
It is formed of two pieces of wood of a size say l^by 2| 
inches and framed together by means of a cross piece, 
which gives it the appearance of the letter H. In this 
yoke are bored four holes of the size of the bows, and 
at such distance apart as would best receive them. 
Across the bows, midway from the bottom to the neck 
piece, are riveted two pieces of iron marked E. and F. 
These pieces have a spiral termination. They should be 
bent out somewhat, lest they uunecessarily pierce the 
sides of the animal, 
FATTENING ANIMALS. 
It should be made a primary object to fatten animals 
intended for slaughter as rapidly as possible, if we wish 
to obtain the greatest quantity of meat in proportion to 
the food consumed. The reason is this: It takes a cer¬ 
tain amount of food, daily, to support life, or to supply j 
the natural waste of the body. For instance, suppose 
fifteen bushels of meal and five hundred pounds of hay | 
will bring an animal to a certain degree of fatness in 
forty days; that is, allowing a peck and a half of meal 
and twelve and a half pounds of hay to be consumed 
daily. Now suppose it takes a fourth part of this daily 
allowance to sustain life and supply the waste of the 
body ; then, if instead of feeding out our whole quantity 
of food in forty days, we prolong the time to an hundred 
and sixty days, the food would be wasted, and the trouble 
and labor of feeding expended for nothing; as the ani¬ 
mal might be in worse condition at the expiration of that 
time than when we began feeding. 
This is a matter which has been too little regarded, 
and as a consequence, there has been a useless expendi¬ 
ture of food and labor. In the animal economy, the ac¬ 
cumulation of fat and extra flesh, is only a deposit of 
superfluous nutriment, which not being required by the 
system at one time, is laid by for future emergencies; 
and it must be obvious that the larger the quantity of 
food which a fattening animal can be made to consume 
daily, with a good appetite, or to digest thoroughly, the 
greater will be the amount of flesh and fat gained in 
proportion to the whole quantity of food consumed. 
Another essential point in fattening animals, is to keep 
them in a quiet and comfortable condition. We do not 
propose to engage at present in a consideration of the 
relative action of the different organs of the animal body. 
Every farmer has, however, more or less noticed the 
connection which the nervous system has with the diges¬ 
tive and secretive organs. An animal may consume a 
large amount of food, but if it is so situated that it is 
restless and discontented, the accumulation of fat will be 
only at a slow and unprofitable rate. We have seen 
hogs and cattle intended for slaughter, rendered so en¬ 
tirely uncomfortable from the coldness and filthiness of 
their situation, that they scarcely throve at all, though 
they consumed and wasted much more food than they 
would have required if properly cared for. Hence the 
saying, that “an animal will fret oil flesh faster than it 
can be gained.” 
Animals should not be confined to wet and muddy 
places—above all things they should not be obliged to 
take their food in such places. Cattle and sheep that are 
fed with grain and vegetables, should be provided with 
clean mangers. Fatting hogs should be fed in clean 
troughs, or on clean dry floors, and their sleeping places 
should be dry and sufficiently warm. They should not 
be expected to perform much labor in the compost-yard; 
that service should be rendered while they are in work¬ 
ing trim, and not after they are full fedandare becoming 
overloaded with fat. All exertion is attended with a 
waste of muscular tissue, and the more laborious the exer¬ 
tion, the greater is the expenditure. Hence the increase 
in weight will be most rapid by allowing the animal to 
remain as much at rest as is consistent with the preserva¬ 
tion of its health. 
Substances in which the nutriment is much concentra¬ 
ted, should be fed with care. There is danger, espe¬ 
cially when the animal is first put to feed, that more 
may be eaten at once than the digestive organs can 
manage. Meal of Indian corn is highly nutritive, and 
when properly fed causes animals to falten faster than 
almost any other food. They will not, however, bear to 
be exclusively kept on this article for a great length of 
time. Meal matle from the heaviest varieties of corn, 
especially that from the hard flinty kinds grown in the 
northern and eastern states, is quite too strong food for 
cattle, sheep, or horses, to be full-fed upon. Hence one 
of the advantages of having the cob ground with the 
corn, by which the nutriment is diffused through a greater 
bulk, lays lighter in the stomach, and is more thoroughly 
digested. The effect of pure corn meal on animals, we 
suppose to be similar to that sometimes produced on our 
own species by the use of fine wheaten flour—the subject 
becomes dyspeptic , and is forced to use bread which has 
the bran mixed with the flour. The mixture of the cob 
with the meal, answers the purpose of the bran—the 
health of the animal is preserved and the process of di¬ 
gestion goes on uninterruptedly. In fact the advantages 
of grinding the cob and corn together for feeding cattle 
may be said to be well established. For hogs, the bene¬ 
fit of the cob, is not, we think, so evident; those animals 
appearing to be better adapted for taking their nourish¬ 
ment in a concentrated form, than those which rumi¬ 
nate, or chew the cud. Yet food sufficiently bulky to 
effect the distention of the bowels is necessary for hogs. 
Hay or straw, cut into lengths so short as to be readily 
mixed with meal, answers a good purpose in rendering 
the meal easy of digestion, and in enabling the animal 
to extract from it all the nutriment. 
Much has been said on cooking food for stock, and it 
seems to have been pretty well settled that for hogs, it 
is attended with considerable advantages, but as regards 
cattle, we are yet without any reliable experiments made 
in this country. The Highland Society of Scotland, in¬ 
stituted a series of experiments a few years ago, with 
a view of ascertaining the advantage, if any, of cooking 
different kinds of food for different species of animals. 
The conclusion arrived at from the result of these ex 
perimeuts, was, that the superiority of cooked over un 
cooked food for cattle is but trifling, and not sufficient to 
balance the cost; but for hogs, the extra cost of prepara¬ 
tion was repaid. The articles tried were turneps, pota¬ 
toes, barley, and oatmeal, oil-cake and flax seed. We 
do not advert to these experiments as altogether conclu¬ 
sive, though as before said, we could not advise the outlay 
of much expense for cooking food for cattle, till some addi¬ 
tional light shall indicate its advantages. 
The appetite and health of animals are promoted by 
giving a variety of food. This fact has led to the prepa¬ 
ration of compounds for fattening stock. An article called 
“Warnes’ Compound,” (see last vol. Cultivator p. 873, 
374,) is much esteemed by British farmers, for fattening 
