330 
THE CULTIVATOR. 
Not, 
roots, so that in the spring I have a clean bed to work 
upon. The compost is then spread, thirty to forty 
loads per acre, and harrowed first, and then covered 
three to four inches with the plow. This I can easily 
do, as I always break up my grass land from six to nine 
inches deep, varying with the quality of the land. By 
this mode of practice, my corn crops always average 
as high as sixty bushels per acre, and on my best land 
sometimes as high as eighty bushels. 
Having now given my experience with composts, I 
have something to say of the barn-yard. And by the 
way, Messrs. Editors, how many yards you will see 
upon a side hill, with perhaps a brook running by or 
near the lower side, where all the cream of the yard 
runs to, benefitting nobody knows who. Instead of 
this kind of management, the yard should be made con¬ 
siderably dishing towards the centre and the sides will 
then be dry to walk around. A good supply of muck 
should be hauled to the yard in August or September, 
where, if the yard is shaped right , it will absorb all the 
liquids and wash of the higher parts, and retain them 
until wanted. The yard should be cleaned out after 
haying the next season, and the contents laid up in 
square compact heaps on the field where wanted. The 
loads should not be tipped up, to save work, sprauling 
five or six loads over a quarter of an acre, exposing a 
needless surface to evaporation, but nicely laid up ; 
the straw and stalk litter and the liquids of the yard 
among the muck, will ferment it strongly, and the next 
spring it will be a black, free mass, and spread like 
garden mould. 
In addition to supplying the yard liberally with muck, 
a quantity of leaves may be gathered, late in the fall, 
and used for bedding the cattle. Some farmers, in¬ 
stead of this, lay the planks of the cattle stalls with an 
opening between them of about one-half inch, and so 
arranged as to be easily taken up. Two feet thick Qf 
muck or loam, is put under the floor, and in the spring 
it is excellent manure. 
The hog-pen is also an important help in making 
manure. Four or five hogs will make from April to 
December at least thirty loads of most excellent com¬ 
post, if properly attended to. In fact it is a business 
which they seem fully to understand and appreciate. 
The hog yard should not be extended over too much 
ground,, as there will be a loss by evaporation attend¬ 
ing it. The yard should be in as small a compass as 
practicable, and two or three loads of materials put in 
at a time. As often as once a fortnight, holes should 
be made in the manure with an iron bar, and corn 
dropped into them. By attending to this operation, the 
hogs will work the compost over from top to bottom. 
Every farm has not muck upon it, but every farm 
has something in the shape of enriching materials 
which may be profitably carted to the yards. Rich 
turf, thickly matted with grass roots, and dug about 
two inches deep, is an excellent material with which 
to cover a yard. The accumulation of leaves and veg¬ 
etable mould in the hollows and at the foot of hills in 
woodlands—the accumulations by the sides of stone 
walls and fences in the lots, are also good. Every ob¬ 
serving and enterprising farmer will find something on 
his farm, with which he may profitably increase his 
stock of manure. 
I think that observation will fully justify me in 
the remark, that the farmers of New England might 
generally double the quantity of their manure heaps, 
without detriment to the quality, by attending to the 
collecting of those substances to be found on every 
farm, which, while enriching in themselves, absorb and 
retain much of the liquids and gases of the manure, 
which would otherwise run to^ waste. 
F. Holbrook. 
Brattleboro, Aug. 17, 1847. 
ON COOKING FOOD FOR CATTLE. 
We are frequently asked whether the cooking of 
food for stock, by steam or otherwise, would be profi¬ 
table. So far as regards feeding cattle, we are with¬ 
out any reliable experiments which have been made in 
this country to test this point. The subject has at¬ 
tracted much attention in England and Scotland, and 
the results of several experiments there made, have 
been recorded. These experiments seem mostly to 
lead to the conclusion, that though in some instances 
cooked food does produce a greater gain than the same 
amount of raw food, yet the advantage of the former 
is not sufficient to defray the expense. In feeding 
hogs, however, especially where grain of any kind is 
used, the advantage of cooking seems to be generally 
admitted. We are also inclined to think, that there 
may be an advantage in partially cooking some kinds 
of food for cattle—such as corn stalks, chaff, or straw, 
which by this means become more palatable, and the 
nutriment they contain rendered more soluble, and more 
easily assimilated. The whole subject bf feeding ani¬ 
mals, however, is one deserving of more thorough in¬ 
vestigation than it has here received, and We would 
earnestly commend it to the attention of our agricul¬ 
tural societies. In the meantime, we submit the‘fol¬ 
lowing extract from an article “ on the Management 
of Live Stock in Scotland/’ published in the London 
Farmer’s Magazine: 
An important question regarding the feeding of 
cattle, and one in reference to which considerable di¬ 
versity of opinion still prevails, is whether cooked or 
uncooked food is the most profitable. The determina¬ 
tion of this question has been made the subject of care¬ 
ful experiments by eminent farmers north of the Tweed, 
and I shall now give an epitome of the results ob¬ 
tained, and the conclusions arrived at. 
Mr. Boswell, of Kincausie, in Kincardineshire, ex¬ 
perimented on ten Aberdeenshire horned cattle, very 
like one another, and their food consisted of the Aber¬ 
deen yellow bullock turneps and potatoes. The five 
put on raw food weighed alive 228 stones 11 lbs., and 
the other five on cooked food 224 stones 6 lbs. When 
slaughtered, the butcher considered both beef and tal¬ 
low to be perfectly alike. Those fed on raw food cost 
<£32 2s. Id., and those on cooked, £34 leav¬ 
ing a balance of expense of £2 3s. dd.^^^^^Lof the 
former. Mr. Boswell mentions that t^^^^pn raw 
food consumed more than those on stear^PJPmd that 
when raw turneps and potatoes were put into the stall 
at the same time, the potatoes were always eaten up 
before aturnep was tasted ; while, on the other hand, 
steamed turneps were eaten in preference to steamed 
potatoes. The conclusion arrived at by Mr. Boswell 
is, that it is unprofitable to feed cattle on cooked food. 
“ It appears,” he says, “ that it is not worth the trou¬ 
ble and expense of preparation to feed cattle on boiled 
or steamed food ; as although there is a saving in food, 
it connterbalanced by the cost of fuel and labor, and 
could only be gone into profitably where food is very 
high in price, and coal very low.”* 
The above results, regarding the unprofitableness of 
cooked food, have been corroborated by the experiments 
* Prize Essays of the Highland and Agricultural Society. 
