The Wyandot pioneer. (Upper Sandusky, Ohio) 1853-1868, 1854-01-12
THE PIONEER.
AGRICULTURAL.
wintering Domestic Animals.

artificial food, and when cold, storms
wind, and snow and rain, are all operatin:
to weaken or waste the flesh of their farm
stock, unless good system of protection
and precaution is adopted at the outset.
The vastness and importance of this
branch of successful husbandry, is almos
beyond comprehension. The census re-
turns inform us that 600 millions of dol
lars are invested in the live stock of the
Union; yet this does not furnisha a full in
dex to their value, which is intimately
blended with the manufacture of manure
the handspring in the production of al
crops-and on them depend the forces
the general economy, and not only then
direct profits in the sale of butter, cheese
wool, beef, pork, lard and tallow, and liv'
ing animals, but indirectly the profits Of
all kinds of grain and ot-growing, with
which the animals are as intimately con-
nected as the wool and the warp of the
weaver's fabric.
The losses from the bad wintering Of
farm stock are enormous. Estimating that
one-half of their value is required to car
ry them through the average four months
of winter, (Which in the extreme north is
nearly six months, we have three hun
dred millions of dollars to be expended
upon them the country over, between the
present time and the period of spring pas
ture. Would it not be safe to say one
third, or one hundred millions, enough
to make Pacific railway, are annually
lost, literally sunk,-by badmanagement?
Let us look little at this pant of the sub
ject.
We have shown on former occasions
why animals must consume food to sustain
their warmth in cold weather, as well as
for the support of their flesh. A man who
rides in an open cutter in the cold all the
day, although nearly destitute of exercise,
will find it necessary to eat nearly twice
as much as when taking as much exercise
in a warm stove-room; and every farm
laborer has found that he eats more in
chopping cord-wood in the wintry forest,
than in grading wheat under burning
sun. 1t is the same with animals; when
exposed to wind and storms, large por-
ton of the food they consume, must of
necessity go to keep up the heat; and the
farmer must either give them additional
food, or see them decline in fesh-for the
warmth is part of vitality, and must be
keptup, fesho or no flesh, while the animal
lives.
Careful observers who have provided
ample and comfortable shelter, think that
one third of the food of cattle is saved by
such protection, the condition as to flesh
remaining the same as when subjected to
exposure. When they are suffered to lie
on wet straw, or on damp ground with no
straw at all, the cold effects their wet bod
les still more. Mich cows give more and
better milk, when well cared for, and hor-
ses are stronger and more lively for work
Sheep furnish finer wool and more of it,
fewer perish by winter, and all come out
in better condition in spring, when protec-
ted from the blasts of the wintry tempests;
skillful sheep raiser thinks his sheep
barns and sheds were thus paid for in two
winters. The wintering of store pigs
would be a far less expensive item Of farm
economy, if warm, comfortable and clean
quarters were always assigned them.
In addition to the Immediate and pres
ent loss from exposure, there is another
formidable loss of more remote but not
less real character. This is the check or
stuuting in growth which young animals
receive, and which they never get over
Lettwo be fed and treated precisely alike,
at all periods of their growth, with the ex-
ception of exposing one to snow, rain,
mud, and discomfort for single winter,
while the other has warm dry quarters and
good regular food; and that winter will be
impressed upon them, as an indeible his
torical mark, in their relative sizes, for the
rest Of their lives. To say nothing about
the loss of fodder by treading in mud,
feeding irregularly or in over and under
doses, and out of time, and other waste
full practices, we are satisfied that the
above mentioned causes occasion waste
of at least one third of the wintering, and
that the hundred million estimate is not
extravagant.
Why will farmers continue longer to
pursue this costly, slip-shod treatment?-
Why not lay down for themselves set of
rules, something like the following, and
show that they have industry and energy
to practice them with rigid exactness:
/. To shelter all fodder well, that the
weather may not waste its strength.
2. To shelter well the straw for litter,
that 1T may be always dry and comforta-
Bile.
3. To feed regularly, both as to time and
quantity, that the animals may never fret