Muscatine weekly journal. [volume] (Muscatine, Iowa) 185?-1890, 1860-09-07

(From The Country 0sntlsman.1

COeIDEsy QeDSteOs0ns 0u{10& the PAST
year, on the above questions. These
same questions were propounded years
ago, and men then, a. they do now,
gave their opinions and the results Of |
their experiments, and they differed
widely then, and so they do now, and
these questions are still open for dis
cussion, and probably will so remain
for . long time to come.
Ask any number Of farmers which |
would fatten swine the fastest, cooked
zuta bagas and Q given amount Of bar
Icy meal, or raw grated bagas and the
same amount Of meal, probably nine
tenths Of them would soy those fed on
the cooked bsgas would fatten the fast
est.
A few years since the result of such
An experiment was reported in the Irish
Formers Gazette:
eight hogs were selected and divi-
ded into two lots as evenly as could be,
and put up to fatten On the 9th Of No
yember. Each lot was fed regularly
three times a day, having each II
pounds Of bran aud barley meal, the
only difference being that one lot had
steamed ruta bsgas, and the other
pulped (grated) raw ruta bsgas. This
experiment was continued thirty-nine
days /; the lot having cooked food eat
46S pounds Of bran, &C., and 1902
pounds of ruta bagss, and increased
10S pounds, while the lot having u,,-
cooked food eat 468 pounds of bran,
&C., and only $3.50 pounds of ruta
bagas, and gained ITO pounds. 1t will
be seen that the lot with cooked food
eat twice as much ruta bsgas as the lot
having uncooked, and at the same time
did not gain a. much in weight by sev-
On pounds"
The foregoing is certainly a very IN
looked for result-an entire loss Of s.
400 pounds of bagas, and the expense
Of cooking, and the less gain in weight
Of hogs by seven pounds.
Some may ask if there is q loss in
cooking bagas and other roots, is it not
better to cook the meal fed to swine ?
The late Mr.. Colman, in his Fourth
Report Of the Agriculture of Massa-
chusetts, gives the results of some of
his experiments and conclusions drawn
therefrom, and says:
"a peck of Indian meal, taking up
as much water as it would contain, gave
a kettle nearly full of pudding, when
half q bushel of meal imperfectly pre-.
pared gave little more. This seems
to demonstrate the great advantage of
cooked food, both as it respects its in
crease of bulk and the improvement of
its nutritive properties.''
Long continued cooking, and increase
Of bulk, he thought, added much to the
nutritive qualities of the meal. and I
presume most farmers are of the same
opinion.
But Joseph How, Esq, of Methuen,
Mass, arrives at different conclusion
from the above. In the Essex Co.
Transcript, 1848, be gives the details
OF feeding five pigs from the 25th of
August to the 18th Of November, feed
ing alternately on cooked and uncooked
food, changing the food several times
during the trial, and weighing the pigs
at each change of feed, and he says:
'That there should be no mistake in
regard to the above experiments, I
have fed them nearly all the time my
self, and weighed them myself, and the
result was in favor Of uaac0oked meal"
In Flint's Agriculture of Massachu-
sets, 1855, Albert Montague of Sun
derland, gives the result Of an expert
ment in feeding swine with cooked and
uncooked food:
''The meal cooked and uncooked
was alike, one.half corn, one-fourth
oats, and one-fourth broom seed. I
cooked the meal by stirring it into boil
ing water, and letting it boil from
thirty to forty minutes, by which time
it would swell to three times its capac-
ity before boiling. The pigs selected
were all doing we'll upon knocked
food. I put four in two pens, side by
side, weighed them four different times;
kept correct account Of their weight
at each weighing, and weighed the same
hour Of the day each time. I fed two
of them with cooked meal four weeks,
and they were not SO heavy by eleven
pounds as at the time / commenced
They were weighed twice during the
time. They eat four bushels Of meal.
I fed eight and one-fourth bushels of
meal, uncooked, to the others, and they
gained eighty-twe pounds. I then fed
the last named pigs three and one-half
bushels Of cooked meal, and in three
weeks they lost four pounds. fed
five and half bushels Of raw meal to
those first fed on cooked food, and in
three: weeks they gained sixty-one
pounds. I think this proves conclu-
sively that we cannot fatten swine with
profit on cooked food. Had my pigs
never had any meal but what had been
cooked, I presume they might have i'm
proved q little upon it but taking
hem from uncooked and putting them
upon cooked food, they did not eat
quite SO freely at first as they otherwise
might-hence loss.
''But when We remember that even
, hog cannot be SO hoggish as to more
han fill himself, land one quart of cooked
neal would fill as much as three querts
# uncooked meal, we can easily see that
! pig fed with uncooked meal would eat
nearly three, or quite three; times the
'alue Of meal compared with the one
ed on cooked food-providing cooking
iii nhf incroaso Tho voluo cnn- +h;,J