Rensselaer Union, Volume 7, Number 29, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 April 1875 — Steaming Food for Stock. [ARTICLE]

Steaming Food for Stock.

The discussions which have taken place in regard to the best methods of preparing food for stock, and the practice of soiling, steaming food and cutting , fodder, have undoubtedly had the effect to lead to a general improvement in the care and feeding of cattle. In questions of this kind, as in most others, the truth is most commonly found, in the middle course, and however applicable it may be to special cases it is not universal. Though the opinions of practical farmers differ as to the advantages of steaming food, for example, it is surprising to find that so many dairymen who are raising milk for sale are either steaming their food systematically, or doing " what amounts to the same thing essentially, treating it with hot water poured uponit in tubs or feeding boxes which are covered and allowed to stand till the materials are completely softened. In this way they induce an enormous flow of milk, the quality of which depends chiefly upon the ingredients which constitute the mass subjected to this treatment. Steaming food will undoubtedly pay in a large milk dairy—that is, steaming or its equivalent—but it will not pay, as a general rule, except where the object is to produce a large quantity, with less regard to quality. It has the advantage of enabling the farmer to economize many feeding substances, like corn-stalks, coarse hay and straw, since it softens and renders them easily digestible. But though it pays to cut and steam such materials the same can hardly be said of good English hay. That cooking food improves it is perfectly well known to most careful feeders of stock. One bushel of dry corn, for example, made five pounds ten ounces of pork, while one bushel of boiled corn made fourteen pounds seven ounces and one bushel of boiled meal made sixteen to eighteen pounds, thus showing the great advantage of preparing food for fattening stock so as to put it in a perfectly digestible form. System and regularity in feeding is quite as important to success as the condition in which the food is given.— Massachusetes Ploughman,