in open yards. Mr. Horsfall's cows appear to be supplied with about 10 lbs. of wheat or oat straw per day, besides bean straw and from about 10 lbs. to 12 lbs. of hay. From these and like premises I conclude that cattle will, on the average, eat with advantage 10 lbs. per day of straw chaff for say 8 months, or 240 days; or 1 ton 1 cwt. in the year. The question further arises, how much straw will be profitably consumed by sheep where a feeding flock is kept on 400 acres of arable? I do not, on a hasty reference to Mr. Bond's excellent paper on Stock Farming (read before the Central Farmer's Club in 1858), find any distinct answer to this question; but the perusal of this paper led me to note in my own book, the dietary of my flock of 13 score of ewes and lambs at the end of March, 1859. The ewes were then eating five fans of chaff with 1 sack of malt-combs; the lambs went forward, and had 4 stone of meal a-day besides. The fan represented approximately 6 bushels of 6 lbs. each, or 36 lbs. ; so that the ewes ate 180 lbs. a-day, or nearly lb. a-piece. Such an allowance, continued over 100 days, would require, as nearly as may be, 8 tons of straw. Besides the ewes I had about 120 ewe hoggets, which probably ate nearly lb. of cut chaff, when the old ewe ate 3 lb. per day; 100 such hoggets would, at that rate, eat 5,000 lbs. in 100 days, or upwards of 2 tons. 80 fatting wethers also consumed a considerable amount of cut straw chaff with their cake; but as the amount of straw chaff eaten by sheep varies very much with the weather and the temperature, I shall content myself by asserting that 8 tons of straw may be economically used during the winter, for sheep feeding, on a farm of 400 acres of arable land, where a breeding flock is kept. Thus we shall require for the fodder of 50 head of large stock, whether horses or beasts, at least.... For storing roots, when wheat is reaped, waste from thatching, making foundation of stacks, &c., say. Total..... 50 tons. 8" 5 " straw; or fully the excess over 200 tons which 200 acres of average corn can be expected to produce. This note, like the statements which prompted it, is intended to be suggestive rather than conclusive; for throughout we are only opening, not deciding, the important question of the proper use of straw on a farm. The article before us does not profess to dispose of the scientific question of the value of straw for fodder by calculations based on chemical analysis; neither can it appeal to well-conducted experiments, instituted for the purpose of determining the relative values of (say) hay and straw, whether bean or white straw, in combination with cake and roots. These remain among the desiderata of agriculture. The scientific debate seems to lie chiefly within the following limits: No very broad or permanent distinction appears to exist between wheat, barley, and oat straw; that variety which is most congenial to the climate and soil of each district seems to be most palatable and most nutriticus for the use of stock in that district. The amount of water in well-harvested straw seems to vary from 10 to about 14 per cent. ;* the mineral ash from about 5 to 7 per cent. The two together may be taken to contain about 20 per cent., or one-fifth of the whole substance. Of the remainder some state less than 2 per cent., others more than 3 per cent., to consist of albumen, or, as others write, albuminous matter. Two and a half per cent. may be taken as a mean estimate. There is besides a small quantity of oil, variously stated at from to of a lb. per cent. Some readers will recollect that recently Professor Nesbitt stated at the Farmer's Club, that 2 per cent., or even 1 per cent., was the utmost extent of oil that could be found in wheat straw; the above differences, therefore, lie within narrow limits. But we have a residue of nearly 80 per cent. of carbonaceous matter, and it is about the feeding value of this matter that the conflict of opinion really takes place. On the one side it is urged that the chief part of this matter is woody fibre, of little value, only one tenth thereof being soluble in water, or capable of being digested; on the other side, that about half of these substances exist in the form of starch, sugar, and gum, capable of digestion and assimilation, and of immediate use for the supply of the organs of respiration as far as is required, besides being further available for the formation of fat. It would be a task of considerable difficulty even to state the theories, according to which starch may be converted into sugar, or either of these into fat, within the animal economy. Certain chemical agents are more efficacious than simple water in rendering these carbonaceous substances soluble; and there may be juices in the animal economy, whether acid or alkaline, that produce results analogous to these within the stomach of the animal; moreover, some chemical processes, such as that of fermentation, if not carried too far, may assist and prepare the way for the digestive process within. It may be that the admixture of some other kinds of food with straw may conduce to the development of these gastric juices, and to some extent exercise a condimental influence on the digestive process. Practical men long ago liked to have the straw chaff for the cart horses stored some time before use, so that it underwent a gentle heating. This process is now often carried further, whether by the bruising of the clover or grass and weeds which grow together with the barley in the thrashing, or by the admixture of water or small quantities of green clover or roots with the chaff when cut. But however capable of digestion part of the tissues of the straw may be in * If an exceptional analysis gives from 25 to 30 per cent. of water, this may perhaps be accounted for by early cutting or want of the usual stacking. + Stephens, when estimating the straw crop of an imperial acre of wheat at 3,000 lbs., speaks of 40 lbs. (1.33) per cent. of gluten, a low estimate; whilst he assigns to "oil or fa" 100 lbs. (or 25 per cent.) a high estimate. themselves; however we may be learning to assist nature, by, in some rude manner, cooking this food; however even the admixture of other kinds of food with straw may aid the process of digestion as well as of nutrition, yet truly scientific men must hesitate before they admit that by som unseen unexplained process the obedient particles of oxygen, hydrogen, &c., actually do fly hither and thither, and re-arrange themselves just as we should wish them to do, for the formation of fat and oil; whilst practical men, however decidedly they may affirm that cut straw mixed with other food is serviceable already, however hopeful they may be that further knowledge and experience will render it more serviceable, can hardly, from the results of their experience, support those estimates of the value of common straw, which are based on the above-named theories of nutrition: we cannot speak of oil and fat, starch and sugar, as certainly convertible substances—if not convertible terms. Thus far we have been speaking of the worth of wheat, barley, and oat straw, but there is perhaps a more important because a more valuable kind of straw, that of beans and peas, still to be noticed the former kind being specially worthy of attention from the greater breadth that is grown. It may be worth while to compare Professor Way's analysis of bean straw, as given by Mr. Horsfall in his Essay, with two analyses of hay derived from the same source. In these analyses several points are worthy of notice. First, the general similarity of the constituents of the bean straw and the first crop of hay, with the important exception that the former is stated to contain 16 per cent. of albuminous matter, against only 9 in the latter; in either case a quantity widely differing from the 2 or 3 per cent. assigned to such substances in the analyses of wheat, barley, or oat straw. Again, the difference between the first and second crop of hay should be observed, because it probably arose from the latter being cut before it arrived at full maturity; and similar variations would probably be found in the straw of cereals if cut at different stages of their growth. The increase of oil and fatty matter, starch, and gum, accompanied by a proportionate decrease of woody fibre, is very instructive, and would suggest as early cutting of all plants, for the sake of fodder, as is compatible with the maturity of the grain. But if, according to analysis, bean straw would appear to approximate to the value of hay, if not to surpass it, how comes it that its merits have not been more generally recognized and appreciated? The best answer will perhaps be found by pointing to the somewhat similar fate of rape-cake. Until Mr. Pusey, prompted probably by the teaching of chemical analysis, advocated the use of rape-cake as food, it was called oil-dust, and used almost exclusively as manure. Mr. Pusey called attention to the fact that, examined under the recognized heads of chemical analysis, it was equal to linseed, then the only oil-cake in use for feeding, in its constituents. The practical man has never been able to extract as much virtue out of it as out of linseed-cake (unless it be for dairy purposes), and that perhaps chiefly in consequence of its heating qualities and pungent taste, properties of which the analysis took no account. And yet its merits for food are so far recognized, that some farmers, myself among the number, think it almost a sinful waste to drill in nice fresh rape-cake as manure. In like manner, toughness of structure and unpleasantness of flavor may have stood in the way of the use of bean straw; yet the first objection may be overcome, and the second perhaps even converted into an auxiliary, in like manner as so many acids and bitters have been converted into stimulants. On some few clay farms, where roots are scarce and a breeding flock is kept, the value of been straw has been partially recognized as winter stover for the ewes, which, however, only pick over the dried leaves and smaller stalks at the barn door; but in this manner, as also when it is furnished to cart horses for winter stover, but little of the crop is consumed as food, the great bulk being converted at once into manure. No observations on this subject, however incomplete, especially if they would guard against exaggerated estimates as to the convertibility of straw into flesh and fat, can pass without notice the feeding experiments of Mr. Horsfall. That gentleman has undoubtedly had great success with his stall-feeding, on a system in which straw plays a very important part; and undoubtedly he has rendered great service to agriculture, by the public-spirited manner in which he has been at the pains to communicate the results of his valuable experience to the world at large. His practice combines two or three distinguishable and peculiar features: 1st His food is chiefly steamed; and much may depend on the sound discretion exercised, as to the amount both of moisture and of heat to be left in the mixture at feeding time. When I have known the steaming process to be imperfectly tried, the animals became restless, and the food passed too quickly through them, probably from want of due precaution in these respects. Again, the materials used by him under the denomination of straw are various, and generally blended together; so that it remains uncertain to which, or to the combination of which, the chief merit of the result is due. He uses wheat straw; and, again, the husks of the oat (not oat-flight, but the husk or refuse of fine oatmeal); and, thirdly, bean straw. Speaking from conjecture, I should assign the lowest place to the first-named and the highest to the last-named ingredient, with an inclination, perhaps, to attribute the most benefit to that element which has been tested and tried the least, in accounting for an unusually successful result. There is much that calls for further investigation in these experiments; but we may congratulate Mr. Horsfali on his success, and try to emulate it, with the assurance that the comparison of attempts, whether successful or the reverse, will ultimately disclose the point on which success hinges, if, as we can hardly doubt, that result be attainable. The importance of the subject of the economical production of beef cannot be doubted at the present moment, when the system of fattening stock at a loss, with a view to being remunerated by an increased produce of grain, seems to be drawing to an end, whilst the demand for meat is on the increase. The more a man feels assured that statements of direct profit by stall-feeding bullocks will not bear inspection, or, at the best, only apply to exceptional cases, the more anxious he must be that more economical methods of producing beef should be recognized, than those which have hitherto prevailed. If we would see how, in theory, a high value may be assigned to straw, we need only take the hypothesis that it contains 30, or, as a maximum, 40 per cent. of gum, starch, sugar, &c., and that these substances are worth 1d. per lb. 100 30 Του One ton of straw would then contain of 2240 lbs. of starch, &c., which at 1d. per lb. would give us the following value: X 2240d. = 3 x 224d. 3X2 2 4 =56s. per ton; or, in the case of 40 per cent. of gum, starch, &c., Too X 2240d. 4 X 2241. =758. nearly per ton. 4 0 3X4 = 4X2 24 If we are at all prepared for such results, we shall not demur to the phosphates in straw being valued quite as highly as when they are found in any other form. We shall not dwell upon the improbability of any practical farmer buying potash at the price at which it is sold as an article of commerce. We shall hardly pause to inquire why scientific writers are not now content with valuing nitrogen at 6d. per lb., the price it bore in the most palmy days of the nitrogen theory. On the other hand, if carbonaceous matter be so valuable to the animal, we may rather demur to its utter depreciation in the shape of manure, as food for the plant; for the narrow-leaved grasses at nearly all the stages of their growth, and for the brader-leaved tribe at the time of their early development.-P. II. F. Letter from MR. JONAS, communicating a Plan for Cutting and Storing Straw chaff to the best advantage. July 17th, 1860. MY DEAR SIR :-I have just invented a plan for cutting straw into chaff, which gives me much satisfaction. I have purchased of Mr. Maynard of Whittlesford, in this county, one of his powerful chaff cutters, with sifting apparatus attached, which cutter I can work from a wheel or drum attached to my threshing machine, |