to set a high value on it, and it was used very sparingly. There are now ten bushels used where there was a peck then. Of late years I have kept some cows for the sale of milk. I wanted to know what it would cost to keep them. By careful experiment and actual weighing, I found that twenty pounds of good hay would keep a cow better than they are usually kept. For winter milk it is necessary that some provender should be given in addition to hay, and I began with the impression that ten bushels of corn was as good as a ton of hay, and fed accordingly. I soon found out my mistake, and lately when hay was scarce I wanted to get along with as little as would answer, and make up the necessary food with meal. So I went on the supposition that twenty bushels of meal were equal to twenty hundred pounds of hay, but I found out that that was not enough in my experience. Then I hunted up what the books had to say about it, and I found it stated that it required sixty-four pounds of corn to be equal to a hundred pounds of good hay. That just about agreed with my experience, and after finding myself backed up by so good authorities quoted in the Reports, I expressed my views pretty fully at the club and with neighbors, but nobody agreed with me at first. We had some pretty lively discussions about it. Finally I weighed out ten pounds and twenty pounds of hay, and meal equal to ten pounds of hay, reckoning ten bushels and fifteen bushels and twenty bushels equal to a ton of hay, and set them before them. When they came to see the different messes as actually weighed out they all came over to my way of thinking.

MR. PERCIVAL. Did you feed the meal wet or dry?

MR. THAYER. Usually dry. I tried both ways and found no difference. If my cows could not get all the water they need, easily, I would feed wet.

MR. PERCIVAL. Did you cut the hay?

MR. THAYER. I fed it just as it came from the mow.

MR. PERCIVAL. Did you give the cows all they would eat of hay and meal?

MR. THAYER. Not all the meal they would eat, because a coming-in cow will eat more than is for her good.

MR. PERCIVAL. Do you believe it expedient to give a cow all she will eat to make her thrive and do well?

MR. THAYER. There you touch a point where I differ from a majority of farmers. It is thought among us, that if you give an

animal half or two-thirds what it will eat, it will do just as well or better than if you give all it will eat. I don't believe in stuffing an animal's crib from morning to night; but my experience is, that the best plan is to feed three times a day, regularly, all they will eat, right straight along; that is the way I feed; and if there is a better way, I should like to know it. If I can keep three cows on what two will eat, I should like to know how to do it.

MR. DOE. I would like to hear from Mr. Lawrence in regard to feeding hay and meal.

MR. JAMES A. LAWRENCE of Bucksport. I have been very much. gratified by what I have heard and learned at this session, and am well repaid for coming 150 miles to attend, although I am seventytwo years old and was not bred a farmer. Yet, for a few years past I have taken quite an interest in the subject, and have exerted what little influence I could to raise the standard of farming. This year, in common with other farmers in Maine, I am very short of hay, and am driven to my wit's ends to get my stock through the Winter with the least possible expense, and bring them out in good health and condition in Spring. I have adopted this rule I have a horse weighing about 1200 pounds, I give him twelve pounds of hay and two quarts of scalded meal in the morning, a quart of oats at noon, and at night two quarts more of scalded meal. So far, this allowance has kept my horse in good condition, sleek, smooth and bright. My cows are half Durham and half Ayrshire. To my older animals, I give twelve pounds of hay per day, two quarts of scalded meal in the morning, and two quarts of scalded meal at night; and my cows in milk never have given more in winter than they do this winter. My younger stock, three years old, two years old, yearlings and calves, I feed about in that ratio. I have two or three full-blooded Ayrshire calves, which will be a year old next Spring. I am giving them five pounds of hay per day and one pint of oats, and they are sleek and handsome. I wish you to understand that my hay is good hay; there is no clover in it, nor any weeds. I didn't raise ten pounds of clover on my farm the past season. The hay is chiefly timothy and red top, and was cut before it came into the second blossom (if there is any such thing) and cured in the best possible manner, bright, handsome and aromatic. I had not a drop of rain on a single load of hay put into my barn this year. I ought to add that my barn is warm and comfortable, the frost rarely or never entering it.

I have also a colt that will be a year old in April, that is fed three times in the course of the day, and eats six pounds of hay and one quart of oats; he has a good, sleek coat.

THE PRESIDENT. I would like to ask the exact weight of the cows and of the calves, or their probable weight, or girth.

MR. LAWRENCE. I suppose that my cows would girth from five to five and one-half feet; they are not large, being half Durham. and half Ayrshire. The calves I spoke of are full-blood Ayrshires; of course they are not as large as Durhams.

QUESTION. How often do you feed your horses and other animals?

MR. LAWRENCE. Three times a day.

MR. WALKER. Do you give the hay cut?

MR. LAWRENCE. I do sir, unless the hay is very fine. If it is timothy, which grew large and rank, I cut it, but if redtop, I do not cut that.

MR. PARKHURST. Do you wet your meal and mix it with the hay?

MR. LAWRENCE. I usually wet the hay a little, and the meal I give out of a trough made for that purpose; always scalded meal. QUESTION. Do you think that meal thoroughly cooked is better for stock than meal scalded?

Mr. LAWRENCE. I am perfectly satisfied of it; and if I am prospered, I mean to obtain a cooking apparatus, so that I can cook both the hay and meal, and give them in that form.

MR. HERSEY. Do you weigh all your feed?

MR. LAWRENCE. My cattle have eaten nothing this year that has not been weighed. If I live until spring, I mean to know just what it cost me to carry them through. When I begin a thing I go through with it. I was taught when an apprentice and learned to push the fore-plane, that anything worth doing was worth doing well. When I get through the winter, I want to know: exactly the facts, so that if I am called upon I can show the figures. If I find my cattle falling away, I shall increase the quantity; if not, perhaps I may in some cases, diminish it.

MR. GOULD. I have been deeply interested this afternoon, and especially in the paper of Mr. Lucas. I have a rule, perhaps not always safe in its results, but exceedingly convenient and selfsatisfactory in its application; it is this: when any gentleman agrees with me I always think he is perfectly accurate in his

opinions. Applying that rule I find this gentleman to be exceedingly sound in all matters. Being much interested in the subject matter of his discourse, I want to say a word or two by way of illustration in relation to one point which he made. But before doing so, allow me to make a little contribution to the subject which has been just discussed. I have found great difference of opinion with regard to feeding, and the amount of food necessary for keeping animals, and I resolved to go to headquarters. I spent considerable time in the city of New York visiting the horse railroad stables in that city and in Brooklyn, and the omnibus horse stables, in order to learn their experience. I found those in charge very courteous; they opened their books and gave me every information desired. To sum up the results, looking over the record of their experience for several years, I found that they had all settled down, each company for itself, as the result of careful and repeated experiments, the details of which I was privileged to observe, upon one uniform rule for horse-railroad horses, and that was, twelve pounds of hay and sixteen pounds of Indian meal per day. In that way a railroad horse was kept up to his highest condition, and they were enabled to do their work more satisfactorily than under any other system that had been tried. Oats had been repeatedly used as an article of food, and their cost was carefully compared with that of Indian meal. It was feared at one time, that during the hot weather, the feeding of this amount of Indian meal would be found injurious, but the result of their experience was, that Indian meal, on the whole, for a railroad or omnibus horse was the true thing. But they have one very curious practice, the reason of which I am unable to fathom, which I ought to state in connection with this, as possibly bearing upon the subject under discussion. They invariably water all their horses at one o'clock at night. They have an idea, how true it is I do not know, that watering their horses at night adds greatly to their power of digesting the food, and prevents injurious consequences. And yet there is one respect in which an omnibus horse might perhaps furnish an insufficient guide to farmers. I found: on comparison of the railroad horses with the omnibus horses of New York, that while the railroad horses on the average lasted four years, an omnibus horse lasted eight years, or just double. For example, the Third Avenue Railroad Company, which has 1,200 horses in their stables, purchases 300 horses every year. It is their regular rule to turn off 300 horses every year which are

worn out. They have, to be sure, many horses which have been in their service for ten or twelve years, but I speak of the average. Now, the distinction between the railroad horse and the omnibus horse is, that the latter rests the whole Sunday, while the railroad horse works every day of the week. Many persons suppose that this rest accounts in a great measure for the difference in the lives of the two classes of animals. I do not think it does altogether, for it is notorious to those familiar with the railroad labor of New York, that there are certain times in the day, at morning and at night, when the mechanics are rushing to their work and returning to their homes on the outskirts of the city, when the railroad horses are overloaded to an extent to which the omnibus horses are never subjected. I think this overloading has a good deal to do with shortening their lives, as well as not being allowed any period of rest. There is another thing; the veterinary surgeon is called to attend to ten times as many omnibus horses on Monday as on any other day in the week. It is found that this day of rest (perhaps because connected with full feeding) tends to produce colic. Out of 1,200 horses, there may be twelve who will be suffering from colic on Monday morning.

I mention these circumstances to enable you to see that there are important differences; but the main fact remains, and I think it is one upon which you can rely as truly as upon any demonstration in mathematics, that it has been established on satisfactory testimony, that twelve pounds of hay and sixteen pounds of meal is the best food for a hard working horse. They get nothing besides this, except once in a while a few carrots. Formerly they were accustomed to give carrots, or some other roots, once a day, for the purpose of keeping them in health, but careful experiments have satisfied them that a feed of carrots once a week, is sufficient.

Now, in relation to the remark that twenty pounds of hay is sufficient for a cow; I weigh my hay every day and if there is any left over at night, I weigh that and deduct it from the amount given, and my twelve cows have consumed during the winter twenty-four pounds of hay each a day. At the same time I should remark, that last season I was unable to procure the help needed to cut my hay in time, and the consequence was, that a considerable portion was cut after it was in the best condition. It is probable that may account for the fact that my cows needed four pounds more.