The Emporia news. [volume] (Emporia, Kan.) 1859-1881, 1870-02-11
WINTER FOOD FOR DAIRY STOCK.
PROF. LAWS LECTURE BEFORE THE Dali
RYMENis CONVENTION.

PROF. LAWS LECTURE BEFORE THE Dali
RYMEN's CONVENTION.
This gentleman discussed the ques-
ton of the character and condition of
the winter food of dairy stock. He
showed that the combination of cold
water as drink with dry, rich food is
not best for oxen and cows. The horse
| and the sheep are by nature, by the
| smaller size of the stomach and the
| shape of the hoof. unfit for grazing on
low lands and the juicy grasses that
grow on them; but the. cow naturally
grazes on meadows, and is fitted for
| travelling over low surfaces and living
on suceulent grasses, from which the
horse is repealed. He proved that jul
ciness alone adds greatly to the value of
! cow food, and urged that the winter
food of cows and oxen be made as sue
| culent as their summer food. 1t appears
to me. he continued, that l have fur
nished pretty cogent reasons why we
should not condemn our stock to the
simple hay and water on which they are
| too often compelled to subsist during
winter. But as the question, Win it
pay?" is rightly made the test of all
proposals for change on the part of
those who make stock q commercial in
vestment, it is well to add that within
certain limits the amount of aqueous
materials in the food determines the
amount of milk secreted. Another pre-
requisite to profit is that the food be
made sufficiently rich 10 bring up the
milk to a proper standard of excellence.
/ believe the day is not far distant
when we shall have extensive plots of
| turnips, beets and other root crops,
grown on all our dairy farms, to secure
in the winter yield from the dairy in
some degree commensurate to the sum-
mer supply. Already we see the indi-
| cation of this in the more extended cul-
tivation of these crops on the farms of
those public spirited men who have col
lected the best herds of Durham, Jersey,
Ayrshire, and other improved breeds of
| cattle. And in some districts the ex-
ample is spreading among the farmers
generally as its advantages are being
more fully realized. AS the light soil
of the greater part of the State would
seem to encourage the growth of root
crops, it is rather remarkable that they
have not been more universally sowed.
1t must be acknowledged that the Guilt
walton of an acre of turnips requires
more labor and care than an acre of hay,
yet l feel assured that the twenty or
thirty tuns of roots obtained from each
acre will more than compensate for the
extra outlay. Furthermore, if l can
show, as l hope to do before conclude,
that a dietary such as I have recon-
mended will do away with some un-
healthy conditions often met with in
cattle, l trust that the labor objection
will not be made an insuperable one.
In the absence of roots, or potatoes,
wheat bran, bean and pea meal, cut hay
or straw, slightly fermented by admix-
ture with water, or still better, boiled,
may be substituted. The advantage of
cutting and cooking food cannot be
gainsayed. The cooking disintegratcs
the woody fibre, dissolves the salt, and
presents the whole in a condition admi-
rably adapted for easy and perfect di-
gestion. When.the cooking system has
been fairly conducted, the enhanced val
ue of the food is not less than one-third.
Among other advantages of the system
is the supply of the food in a warm con-
dition, thus avoiding that chilling to
which cows are subjected in winter. 1t
likewise encourages the flow of the
milk, whereas a chill always counteracts
such tendency. Cattle which are fed in
Scotland on turnips and uncut wheat or
oat straw will occasionally make
as much as two pounds increase of
weight daily, on a diet of $50 pounds
Swedish turnips and five pounds straw
per day. Yet no one would expect this
daily increase on diet of 20 pounds of
hay per day, which would be a fair nu-
tritive equivalent, as judged by its
chemical constituents, and moreover, is
greatly superior to it in those fat pro-
ducing principles which are specially
required to the feeding OK.
The plentiful supply of liquid to the
blood and tissues not only favors the
destructive and reparatory changes in
those, but maintains in full activity the
various secreting organs counteracting
costiveness, suppressed, concentrated
and irritating urine, inspissated bile,
and the like. The same result follows
in all cases when this finely divided and
watery food is supplied, and however
the condition may have been brought
about, whether by cooking, macerating,
terminating, OF otherwise. Other things
being equal, the progress made in
growth, in fattening, or in yield of
milk, testifies to the enhanced value of
food in this particular condition. The
dealer who wishes to fatten a horse
rapidly for sale, does not feed him on
dry grain and hay, but chooses rather
boiled grain, bran mashes, carrots, po-
tatoes, and other like sloppy food, and
though he loses in hard condition, he
gains in rotundity and weight. The
food of the sucking animal affords one
of the most striking examples of the
mately combined with the other and
more directly nutritive constituents.
The annexed tables from NJ. Boussing-
ault illustrate this;
Weight at birth, 1fa1sslweieht at birth. 1853
Weight q lat, At weaving :s ,o- Weight at days
Daily increase. s-szaI Daily increase. slSis
VT 65 days later 429975 VT at IS days old 1913 1854
Daily increase since Daily increase since
last weighing, Isl last weighing, 20759
These illustrations are confessedly
subject to the objection that at this ear
ly age the powers of assimilation and
growth are especially active, and that
the stomach of the young animal is but
ili-adapted to the digestion of, more
solid food. Yet after making all due
allowance for these drawbacks. they
sufficiently testify to the value of a
standard food in this special form of
intimate combination with water. The |
contrast between calf which has been
sucked nine months by its dam, and |
one that has been weaned at two or |
three months, sufficiently illustrates the |
value of this food The whole subject |
as affecting the feeding of the OK may
be stated in nutshell thus: The more |
minute the division of the nutritive ele- |
ments in the food. the more readily are
they digesfed and assimiiated.
/ need not add that sofa, aqueous
and laxative diet of this kind is the |
worst possible for the hard working /
horse. Though It requires a rapid for
nation of fat and increase of weight, it |
equally entails that the tissues general
Nv shall be Of that leose and 6abby tex
fIIro yrfiicf1 ia 1uenFunafi1llss with active