The Milan exchange. (Milan, Gibson County, Tenn.) 1874-1978, 1879-10-02

tice upon it. In most families that are
well managed there is a succession of
different dishes for each day of the
week. Thus, the average BoStonian
thinks he must have baked beans and
brown bread for Sundays dinner, and
boiled fish for Friday, with roast beef,
lamb, turkey, chickens, and corned
beef on the intervening days, the order
varying in different families, but the
change being universal. He would be
considered a demoralized Yankee who
should provide for his household roast
lamb or turkey two days in succession.
Now, the inferior animals may not have
such delicate tastes, certainly they have
not such pampered appetites, as
city children, but they have the
same love of variety, and in their
wild state crafty it as well as they can,
and nature has provided the means for
gratifying it to far greater extent than
most people suppose. The number of
forage plants is almost unlimited. Be-
sides the great variety of grasses--Flint
names 125 in his treatise on grasses
there are weeds, bushes, and trees in
great numbers on which most wild ami
mails feed extensively. Many of them
also have n delicious dessert of the va
rious fruits in their season. Our do
mestic animals, fed on dry hay alone
from November to May, must suffer,
and if they only could talk as well as
our children, they would say, "We want
n change"
Exactly what the variety in food shall
be, each farmer-as every family does
must decide according to circumstances,
and we can lay down no universal law,
except the general one of variety. We
will venture, however, to make some
suggestions on this point. In the first
place, there should be some variety in
the hay. To contine horses to timothy
and cows to red-top is unwise, if not
cruel. Horses are very grateful for a
little well cured clover occasionally, and
like bite of fresh grass or rOwen hay
better than oats. Trotters and hard
worked horses are seldom allowed such
a bite, as it makes them relaxed and
perspiratory, but it does them good not
withstanding, and if every Sunday morn
ing they could be furnished with good
feed of rowen, they would be more
healthy and live longer. Fresh grass is
natures phySic, but the fast horseman
prefers arsenic or some other drug pOis-
on, and will not allow his horse new hay
or new oats. They must be old and dry
as Il cob, or his horse will not come
around ahead on the fifth heat. In win
ter, the non-trotting season, the fast
horse fares better, rs his steady summer
ratiOns of dry hay and oats are then va
ried with an occasional feed of carrots
and a mash of bran.
Apples make an excellent dish for
cows and horses, and one which they rel
ish greatly. They are as healthy food
for stock in the barn as for the stock of
children in the house, and it is difficult
to tell which is the most greedy for
them. They are both so ravenous that
if turned into an orchard, not being ac-
customed to an apple ration, they will
eat so many as to tax their stomachs I'M
reasonably. The true mode, therefore,
of feeding apples is to make the ration
small ut first, and increase the allow
ance as the animal becomes accustomed
to the new diet. Fed in this way they
will stimulate the appetite of the horse,
and give a fine gloss to his hair, and
cause great flow of milk from cows.
Apples are also excellent for fattening
cattle, counteracting the tendency to
feverish action engendered by corn-meal,
and giving fine flavor to the beef
Farmers are sometimes afraid of feeding
apples to fattening cattle and sheep, be-
inc apprehensive of what they call
scouring;" but there is no danger Of
this if fed as recommended for milch
COWS. On the contrary, the apples will
stimulate the appetite of the animal,
and cause him to feed and fatten more
kindly.
1t is hardly necessary to mention roots
among the mixed rations of stock. Hap
PLY, both for the farmer and his cattle.
these are now recognized quite generally
as among the essential foods. Making
milk out of old hay alone was, and al
ways will be, hard work-much like
making whistle out of a pigs tail. In
every well managed dairy-farm roots of
some kind are raised and fed about as
regularly as hay, and the testimony is
that, if they do not greatly diminish the
ration of hay, they increase the amount
of milk, keep the COWS in good health,
and add greatly to the value of the
manure. The only question is, "What
roots are the most profitable?" In an
swer to this, we would say that variety
of roots is desirable. The common En-
glish turEip is raised very economically,
if one only knows how, and it makes an
excellent feed for stock in the early part
of winter, or until the mangOlds are
ripez These are also easily raised, so
easily that neighbOr who once tried
them on our recommendation COM
planned that he was overwhelmed with
a mangold blessing, and had not room
to store his product. The remedy for
such a calamity is to bury them in a pit,
where they will keep till spring. Swedes
will keep till summer, and these are the
roots to raise for late feeding. Carrots
are good for all kinds of stock, especially
horses; but their culture is attended
with so much backache that we do not
expect to see them popular with farm
erS, except rs they raise them at fancy
price for breeders of fancy horses.
Corn fodder and millet make good
mixed rations, whether fed in summer
or winter. The former needs no rec
ommendation has made itself popular
by its merits in spite of condemnation
by some of the doctors of agriculture,
and the latter is slowly winning favor.
We have not space to mention other
feeds which would serve to make va
riety for stock Corn meal, of course,
will always hold a prominent place
r.. z. God