The practical shepherd: a complete treatise on the breeding, management and diseases of sheep by Randall Henry Stephens 1811-1876

Author:Randall, Henry Stephens, 1811-1876. [from old catalog]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Tags: Sheep. [from old catalog]
Publisher: Philadelphia, J. B. Lippincott & co.
Published: 1863-03-25T05:00:00+00:00

better proof to the contrary, to admit its equality and presume its superiority. When science and such an array of practice combine to pronounce peas and beans about equal with each other, and among the most nutritious of vegetable products, we ought to adopt that conclusion, if, indeed, we did not already know so notorious a fact. Accordingly, as few sheep farmers are able to make all these experiments for themselves in advance of trying them directly on the body of their flocks, all ought to see the expediency of a very careful study of such a table of Nutritive Equivalents as the preceding one.

Reaumur's experiments, given on page 236, are also especially valuable: and it is only to be wished that their accuracy had also been tested by numerous other experiments directed to the same specific objects of inquiry. Still, I have great general confidence in them. Some of the facts he arrives at are very striking, as, for instance, the superiority of peas over every other vegetable substance named in his list, in the specific production of wool, while barley and wheat considerably exceed it? and oats nearly equal it, in the production of tallow. And a still more striking fact is found in the increase of wool and diminution of tallow produced by adding straw to "good hay" as a habitual food. If there is no mistake in this showing, it is a high point of policy in the wool grower to feed straw, and in the mutton grower to avoid feeding it.

This brings me to another very important consideration, viz., the relative cost and general economy of the different kinds of feeds. According to Reaumur's Table, 1,000 pounds of peas produce 134 pounds live weight of carcass, 14 pounds 11 ounces of wool, and 41 pounds 6 ounces of tallow, while 1,000 pounds of mangel wurzel produce 38 pounds of live weight, 5 pounds 3£ ounces of wool, and 6 pounds 5-£ ounces of tallow. Thus the latter produces between a third and a fourth as much live weight, a little more than a third as much wool, and nearly a seventh as much tallow. Peas weigh 60 lbs. to the bushel. If we assume that mangel wurzels weigh the same,* four bushels of them will produce more live weight and weight of wool than one bushel of peas. Not being personally familiar with the culture of mangel wurzel, I will, for the purposes of this illustration, substitute Swedish turnips

* This is the statutory -weight of a bushel of potatoes in New York,— but no weight is prescribed for other roots. I have never raised or weighed a bushel of mangel wurzels—but there cannot be difference enough between their weight and that of potatoes to make any material difference for the purposes of the comparison instituted in the text.

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