The Stock-Feeder's Manual Part 22

An intelligent Scotch dairy farmer bears the following testimony in favor of this cake:--

I have tried pease-meal, bean-meal, oat-meal, and linseed-cake, and after carefully noting the results, I consider rape-cake, weight for weight, at least equal to any of them for milch cows; and if I give the same money value for each, I get at least one-third more produce, and the b.u.t.ter is always of a very superior quality. Two years ago, I took some of my best oats (41 lbs. per bushel), and ground them for the cows, and although I was at about one-third more expense, I lost fully one-third of the produce that I had by using rape-cake. I always dissolve it by pouring boiling water on it, and give each cow 6 lbs. daily.

I have tried a larger quant.i.ty, and found I was fully repaid for the extra expense. I generally use it the most of the summer, but always during the spring months. A number of my neighbours who have tried it all agree that it is the best and cheapest feed for milch cows they have used.--_North British Agriculturist_, Edinburgh, February 29, 1860.

The best kinds of rape-cake come from Germany and Denmark. When neither too old nor too fresh, and of a pale-green color, these foreign cakes are tolerably well-flavored, and are but slightly inferior to good linseed-cake. Most varieties of this cake, however, contain a small proportion of acrid matter, which often renders them more or less distasteful to stock, more particularly to cattle. This substance may be rendered quite innocuous by steaming or boiling the cake; either of these processes will also, according to Mr. Lawrence, destroy the disagreeable flavor which mustard-seed--a frequent adulterant of rape-cake--confers upon that article. Mola.s.ses or treacle is an excellent adjunct to the cake, as it serves in a great measure to correct its somewhat unpleasant flavor. Carob, or locust-beans, answer, perhaps better, the same purpose. It is better, as a general rule, to give less rape-cake than linseed-cake, unless the pale-green kind to which I have referred is obtainable; that variety may be largely employed. The animals should be gradually accustomed to its use. At first, in the case of bullocks, they should get only 1 lb. per diem, and the quant.i.ty should be gradually increased to about 4 lbs.; but I would not advise, under any circ.u.mstances, a larger daily allowance than 5 lbs. Given in moderate amounts, it will, supposing it to be of fair quality, be found to give a better return in meat than almost any other kind of concentrated food; and, what is of great importance, it will not injuriously affect the animal's health. "Our experience of the use of rape-cake," says Mr. Lawrence, "thus used (cooked), extends over a period of ten years of feeding from 20 to 24 bullocks annually. We have not had a single death during that period, and the animals have been remarkably free from any kind of ailment."

Rape-cake of good quality possesses a dark-green color (the greener the better), and when broken exhibits a mottled aspect--yellowish and dark-brown spots. Sometimes a tolerably good specimen has a brownish color; but the German and Danish cakes are always of a greenish hue.

The odor is stronger than that of linseed-cake, and differs but little from that of rape-oil. The only serious adulteration of rape-cake is the addition to it of mustard-seed--sometimes accidentally--less frequently, as I believe, intentionally. This sophistication admits of easy detection. Sc.r.a.pe into small particles about half an ounce of the cake, add six times its weight of water, form the solid and liquid into a paste, and allow the mixture to stand for a few hours. If the cake contain mustard the characteristic odor of that substance will be evolved, and its intensity will afford a rough indication of the amount of the adulterant. As some specimens of genuine rape-cake possess a somewhat pungent odor, care must be taken not to confound it with that of mustard; but, indeed, it is not difficult to discriminate the latter.

The paste of rape-cake which contains an injurious proportion of mustard, has a very pungent flavor. Rape-cake improves somewhat if kept for say six months; but old cake is worse than the fresh article.

_Cottonseed Cake_ is one of the most valuable feeding stuffs that have come into use of late years. Its chemical composition shows it to be about equal to that of the best linseed-cake, and as its price is much lower than that of the latter, it may be fairly considered a more economical food. These remarks apply only to the sh.e.l.led, or decorticated seed-cake, for the article prepared from the whole seed is of very inferior composition, and should never be employed. The use of the cake made from the whole seed has proved fatal in many instances, not from its possessing any poisonous quality, but in consequence of its hard, indigestible husk, acc.u.mulating in, and inflaming, the animal's bowels.

The composition of this cake varies somewhat. The following a.n.a.lysis of a sample from one of the Western States of North America, imported by Messrs. G. Seagrave and Co., of Liverpool, was made by me:--

COMPOSITION OF DECORTICATED COTTON-SEED CAKE.

Water 820 Oil 1016 Alb.u.minous, or flesh-forming principles 4025 Gum, sugar, &c. 2110 Fibre 923 Ash (mineral matter) 1106 ------ 10000

In some specimens so much as 16 per cent. of oil has been found. The purchaser of cotton-seed cake should be certain that it is not old and mouldy, which is frequently the case. The recently prepared cake has a very yellow color, which becomes fainter as the cake becomes older.

Freshness is a very desirable quality in nearly every kind of cake.

I have known animals to have a greater relish for, and thrive better upon, home-made linseed-cake than upon cake of foreign manufacture of superior composition, but of greater age.

_Palm-nut Meal, or Cake_ is a very valuable fattening food. It is extremely rich in ready-formed fatty matters, but at the same time it is not very deficient in alb.u.minous substances. Its strong flavor is rather a drawback to its use in the case of all the farm animals, except pigs.

This difficulty may, however, be got over by using the cake in moderate quant.i.ties, and by combining it with other food possessed of a good flavor. Reports of practical trials made with this food appear to have almost uniformly given very favorable results. This food is only three or four years in use. The first samples that came into my hand were richer in fatty matters than those which I have recently examined.

The average results of eight a.n.a.lyses made from 1864 to 1866 were as follows:--

100 PARTS CONTAINED--

Water 748 Alb.u.minous matters 1726 Fatty substances 2159 Gum, sugar, &c. 3214 Fibre 1718 Mineral matter 435 ------ 10000

This year I have not found more than 17 per cent. of fat in any sample of palm-nut cake. One specimen which I a.n.a.lysed for Mr. J. G. Alexander, seed merchant, of Dublin, had the following composition:--

Water 924 Alb.u.minous matters 1928 Fatty matters 936 Gum, starch, fibre, &c. 5322 Mineral matters 890 ------ 10000

But although inferior samples are occasionally met with, I may say of palm-nut cake that on the whole it is a food which deserves to be largely used, and which at its present price is the most economical source of fat. To milch-cows and fattening cattle about 3 lbs. per diem may be given; 1/4 lb. will be sufficient for young sheep, whilst pigs may be very liberally supplied with this food.

The _Locust, or Carob Bean_, is now largely used by the stock-feeder.

It is extremely rich in sugar, and is therefore an excellent fattening and milk-producing food. It is used largely in the preparation of the sweet kinds of artificial food for cattle. It is not well adapted for young animals, owing to its deficiency of alb.u.minous matters. The following a.n.a.lysis shows the average composition of this food:--

Water 14 Sugar 50 Alb.u.minous matters 8 Oil 1 Gum, &c. 20 Woody fibre 5 Ash 2 --- 100

_Dates_ have been used, but only in very small quant.i.ties, as cattle food. Their composition is not constant, some samples being greatly inferior in nutritive power to others; they are rich in sugar, and if they were obtained in sufficient quant.i.ties they might, like carob-beans, come into general use with the stock-feeder. They contain about 2 per cent. of flesh-formers, 10 per cent. of fat-formers (chiefly sugar), and 2 per cent. of mineral matter.

Distillery and brewery dregs (or wash) are chiefly used by dairymen.

According to Dr. Anderson, an imperial gallon (700,000 grains) of distillery wash (from a distillery near Edinburgh) contained 4,130 grains of organic matter, and 276 grains of mineral substances.

He considers that 15 gallons of this stuff were equal in nutritive materials to 100 pounds of turnips. The following is the centesimal composition of brewery wash:--

Water 7585 Alb.u.minous matters 062 Gummy matters 106 Other organic matter (husks, &c.) 2128 Mineral matters 119 ------ 10000

_Mola.s.ses_ const.i.tute a very fattening food, sometimes, but not often, given to stock. Treacle and mola.s.ses are composed of non-crystallisable sugar, cane-sugar, water, and saline and other impurities. The composition of average specimens of mola.s.ses, as imported, is as follows:--

Cane-sugar 50 Non-crystallisable sugar and grape-sugar 25 Water, saline matter, and organic impurities 25 --- 100

If admitted duty free, mola.s.ses would be a much more economical food than it now is, but at its present price it must be regarded as a mere flavoring food.

Mr. T. Cooke Burroughs, a West Suffolk feeder, who used treacle in 1864, gives the following mode of mixing it with other food:--

My plan has been (and is still carried on) to give to each bullock per day (divided into three meals) one pint of treacle dissolved in two gallons of water, and sprinkled, by means of a garden water-pot, over four bushels of cut chaff (two-thirds straw and one-third hay) amongst which a quarter of a peck of meal (barley and wheat) is mixed, the animals also having free access to water. The cost of the treacle and meal together is about 3s. per bullock per week. My bullocks (two-year old Shorthorns) have grown and thrived upon the above diet to my utmost satisfaction; and even during the present dry and warm weather they evince no lingering after roots or gra.s.s. I am well aware that the use of treacle for neat stock is no new discovery of my own, as I learnt the system while on a visit to a friend in Norfolk, where some graziers have used it in combination with roots during many years past. Perhaps flax-seed (linseed) boiled into a jelly and used in a similar way, may be a more profitable "subst.i.tute for roots" than treacle; but the preparation of it is attended with more expense and trouble.

SECTION VIII.

CONDIMENTAL FOOD.

Although every farmer may not have used, there are few who have not heard of "Thorley's Condimental Food for Cattle." This nostrum is a compound of some of the ordinary foods with certain well-known aromatic and carminative substances. It possesses a very agreeable flavor, and it is therefore much relished by horses, and indeed by every kind of stock.

The price of this compound was at first so much as 60 per ton; but owing to compet.i.tion, and perhaps to the attacks made upon the enormously high price of this article, it is now to be obtained at prices varying from 12 to 24 per ton.

The inventor of condimental food, and the numerous fabricators of that compound, claim for it merits of no ordinary nature. Its use, they a.s.sert, not only maintains the animals fed upon it in excellent health, but it also exercises so remarkable an action upon the adipose tissues that fat acc.u.mulates to an immense extent. Moreover, it is said that an animal supplied with a very moderate daily modic.u.m of this wonderful compound, will consume less of its ordinary food, though rapidly becoming fat.

Now, if these a.s.sertions were perfectly, or even approximatively, true, Mr. Thorley would be well deserving of a niche in the temple of fame, and stock-feeders would ever regard him as a benefactor to his own and the bovine species; but I fear that Mr. Thorley's imagination outstripped his reason when he described in such glowing terms the wonderful virtues of his tonic food.

Mr. J. B. Lawes, of Rothamstead, than whom there is no more accurate experimenter in agricultural practice, states that he made many careful trials with Thorley's food, and that he never found it to exercise the slightest influence upon the nutrition of the animals fed upon it.

In his report upon this subject, Mr. Lawes, after describing the experiments which he made, sums up as follows:--

There is nothing therefore in the above results to recommend the use of Thorley's condiment with inferior fattening food, to those who feed pigs for profit. In fact, the following balance-sheet of the experiment shows that, in fattening for twelve weeks, there was a balance of 1 10s. 11d. in favor of the lot fed without Thorley's food, notwithstanding that one of the pigs in that lot did badly throughout the experiment, as above stated.

LOT 1.--WITH BARLEY-MEAL AND BRAN.

s. d.

4 pigs bought in at 41s. 6d. each 8 6 0 1,860-3/4 lbs. barley, at 37s. 6d. per quarter of 416 lbs., including grinding 8 7 8-3/4 1,024-3/4 lbs. bran at 5s. 6d. per cwt. 2 10 3-3/4 ------------ 19 4 0-1/2 88 stone 5 lbs. of pork sold at 4s. 4d.

per stone, sinking the offal 19 4 0-1/2

LOT 2.--WITH BARLEY-MEAL, BRAN, AND THORLEY'S FOOD.

s. d.

4 pigs bought in at 41s. 6d. each 8 6 0 1,862-3/4 lbs. barley, at 37s. 6d. per quarter of 416 lbs., including grinding 8 7 10-1/4 1,020-3/4 lbs. bran at 5s. 6d. per cwt. 2 10 1-1/2 105 lbs. Thorley's food at 40s. per cwt. 1 17 6 ------------ 21 1 5-3/4 90 stone 1 lb. pork sold at 4s. 4d.

per stone, sinking the offal 19 10 6-1/2 ------------ 1 10 11-1/4

The results of these experiments with pigs, in which Thorley's condiment was used with inferior fattening food, may be summed up as follows:--

1. The addition of Thorley's condimental food increased the amount of food consumed by a given weight of animal within a given time.

2. When Thorley's condiment was given it required more food to produce a given amount of increase in live-weight.

3. In fattening for twelve weeks there was a difference of 1 10s. 11d. on the lot of 4 pigs in favor of barley-meal and bran alone, over barley-meal, bran, and Thorley's food in addition.