I have cooked or steamed my food for several years. It will be observed that I blend bean-straw, bran, and malt-combs, as flavoring materials, with oat or other straw and rape-cake; the effect of steaming is to volatilize the essential oils, in which the flavor resides, and diffuse them through the mess. The odor arising from it resembles that observed from the process of malting; this imparts relish to the mess, and induces the cattle to eat it greedily; in addition to which, I am disposed to think that it renders the food more easy of digestion and assimilation. I use this process with advantage for fattening, when I am deficient in roots. With the same mixed straw and oat-shells, three to four pounds each of rape-cake, and half a pound of linseed-oil, but without roots, I have fattened more than thirty heifers and cows free from milk, from March up to the early part of May; their gain has averaged fully fourteen pounds each per week,—a result I could not have looked for from the same materials, if uncooked. This process seems to have the effect of rendering linseed-oil less of a laxative, but cannot drive off any portion of the fattening oils, to volatilize which requires a very high temperature. My experience of the benefits of steaming is such that if I were deprived of it I could not continue to feed with satisfaction.
I have weighed my fattening cattle for a number of years, and my milch cows for more than two years. This practice enables me at once to detect any deficiency in the performance of the animals; it gives also a stimulus to the feeders, who attend at the weighings, and who are desirous that the cattle intrusted to their care should bear a comparison with their rivals. Another obvious advantage is in avoiding all cavils respecting the weight by my purchasers, who, having satisfied themselves as to the quality of the animal, now ask and obtain the most recent weighing. The usual computation for a well-fed but not over fat beast is, live to dead weight, as 21 to 12, or 100 to 591⁄7 with such modifications as suggest themselves by appearances.
Though many discussions have taken place on the fattening of cattle, the not less important branch of dairy treatment has hitherto been comparatively neglected. I therefore venture to call attention to considerations which have arisen from observations in my own practice affecting the chemistry and physiology, or, in other words, the science of feeding. That I am seeking aid from its guidance will be apparent, and I have no hesitation in admitting that, beyond the satisfaction from the better understanding of my business, I have latterly derived more benefit or profit from examination of the chemical composition of materials of food than from the treatment or feeding experiments of others which have come under my notice. So persuaded am I of the advantage of this, that I do not feel satisfied to continue the use of any material, with the composition of which I am not acquainted, without resorting to the society’s laboratory for an analysis.
To one leading feature of my practice I attach the greatest importance—the maintenance of the condition of my cows giving a large yield of milk. I am enabled, by the addition of bean-meal in proportion to the greater yield of milk, to avert the loss of condition in those giving sixteen to eighteen quarts per day; whilst on those giving a less yield, and in health, I invariably effect an improvement.
When we take into consideration the disposition of a cow to apply her food rather to her milk than to her maintenance and improvement, it seems fair to infer that the milk of a cow gaining flesh will not be deficient either in caseine or butter.
I have already alluded to the efficiency of bean-meal in increasing the quantity of butter: I learn, also, from observant dairymen who milk their own cows and carry their butter to market, that their baskets are never so well filled as when their cows feed on green clover, which, as dry material, is nearly as rich in albumen as beaus. I am also told, by those who have used green rape-plant, that it produces milk rich in butter. From this we may infer that albuminous matter is the most essential element in the food of the milch cow, and that any deficiency in the supply of this will be attended with loss of condition, and a consequent diminution in the quality of her milk.
I am clearly of opinion that you can increase the proportion of butter in milk more than that of caseine, or other solid parts. From several, who have adopted my treatment, I learn that on substituting rape-cake for beans they perceive an increased richness in their milk. Mr. T. Garnett, of Clitheroe, who has used bean-meal largely as an auxiliary food for milch cows during the winter season, tells me that when rape-cake is substituted, his dairymaid, without being informed, perceives the change from the increased richness of the milk. Mr. Garnett has also used linseed-cake in like quantity; still his dairy people prefer rape-cake.
Mr. Whelon, of Lancaster, who keeps two milch cows for his own use, to which he gave bean-meal and bran as auxiliaries, has recently substituted rape-cake[4] for bean-meal; he informs me that in a week he saw a change in the richness of milk, with an increase of butter.
[4] The analysis of cotton-seed cake, in comparison with rape and linseed cake, in a former chapter of this work, will show the comparative value of that as food for milch cows.
The vegetable oils are of two distinct classes: the drying or setting represented by linseed, the unctuous represented by rape-oil. They consist of two proximate elements, margarine and oleine; in all probability they will vary in their proportion of these, but in what degree I have not been able to ascertain. Though the agricultural chemists make no distinction, as far as I am aware, between these two classes of oils, the practitioners in medicine use them for distinct purposes. Cod-liver oil has been long used for pulmonary complaints; latterly, olive, almond, and rape oils are being employed as substitutes. These are all of the unctuous class of oils. Mr. Rhind, the intelligent medical practitioner of this village, called my attention to some experiments by Dr. Leared, published in the Medical Times, July 21st, 1855, with oleine alone, freed from margarine, which showed marked superiority in the effect; and I now learn from Mr. Rhind that he is at present using with success the pure oleine, prepared by Messrs. Price & Co., from cocoa-nut oil, one of the unctuous class. That linseed and others of the drying oils are used in medicine for a very different purpose, it seems unnecessary to state.