diseases of the digestive organs.

472 DISEASES OF CATTLE.THE FEED-CUTTER.There should be a good feed-cutter on every dairy farm, useful forsilo fillingin the fall and for chaffing feed in the winter. All cornstalksshould be put through this machine, for then they are in better conditionfor feeding, and the coarser portions left uneaten are in good formfor bedding and the manure heap. Long cornstalks are a nuisance ina feeding manger, worthless for bedding, and troublesome in the manurepile. Many farmers finddifficulty in feeding cut cornstalks, since sometimesthe cows refuse to eat them. In a few cases we have found thatthe sharp ends of the cornstalks, when cut certain lengths, injure themouths of the cows. This difficulty can usually be avoided by changingthe length of cut. Judging from experiments at the Kansas station,it is possible that in the lower portions of the corn belt cornstalksare so coarse and poor that they are not useful for feeding dairy cows,but farther north I am sure they will pay for the cutting. Where theyare not well eaten the cause is often due to overfeeding, or endeavoringto have the cows live on too limited a variety of foods. Keep themangers clean and feed the cut fodder with care, and usually very littlewill be left over, and that only the coarsest portion. Experiments atthe Wisconsin station show that with the varieties of corn raised theremuch more of the cut stalks will be eaten than if fed uncut under thesame conditions.Where corn is cheap and labor high, uncut shock corn of small varietiescan be very successfully fed to dairy cows. It is surprising to seehow they thrive on it, and the undigested grain can be gathered fromthe droppings by lively shotes. This system is somewhat crude, butnot without advantages in the pioneer stage of dairying in the cornbelt, where it helps to educate the farmers to a proper appreciation ofthe value of corn and corn stover for dairy cows. After a time thispractice should give way to more improved methods commonly followedin the older dairy sections.Much has been written in regard to wetting hay, straw, and stalks,putting meal thereon and mixing up before feeding. The English areaccustomed to pulp or slice roots, mix these with cut hay or " chaff,"as they call it, and then sprinkle the meal over the mass, shoveling itover. Such mixtures must be very palatable to the cow, and give excellentresults. In most dairy sections we have not yet progressed sofar in our feeding methods, and the simpler practice of giving hay andgrain separately will probably be continued by many, as it gives veryfair results.The best general rule to follow is to put the food of a cow into justthat form which seems most palatable to her. Many labor under themistaken idea that food will not be properly mixed in the rumen unlessit is mixed before being swallowed. Examinations of the rumens ofcows fed experimentally show that different kinds of feed are all inti-