559 Official Reports. THE EARLY FEEDING OF MANGELS TO STOCK, In general farm practice, when turnips and swedes are fairly abundant, it is not usual to commence giving mangels to stock until the new year has been entered upon, by which time the mangels, which have been stored meanwhile, are considered to be fit for feeding purposes. Moreover, there is general support given in practice to the belief that mangels, if fed early, say before Christmas, are apt to do harm to stock, causing "scouring" if fed at all freely, whereas these injurious properties pass off if the roots be stored and only fed at a later date. There are, however, some agriculturists who make a practice of feeding mangels early to stock, especially to dairy cows, and maintain that, if this is done judiciously, mangels may be fed quite well and profitably from the time of taking up the crop. Again, in the case of failure of the turnip crop, it may be that the farmer finds himself obliged to begin feeding his mangels earlier than he ordinarily would do. Such was the case in the winter of 1898-9 at the Woburn Experimental Farm; there was a very short crop of swedes, but a very good one of mangels. The circumstances, accordingly, were such as to make desirable a trial of the early feeding of mangels to stock. In connection with this question it has to be borne in mind that perhaps no factor is so important as is the influence of season in determining the relative state of maturity reached by root crops, and whilst the conditions of one season may lead to the production of a more or less immature root, those of another may result in a fully matured crop. Thus it does not follow of necessity that the early feeding of mangels will be attended by the same difficulties in one season as in another. The year 1898 was, in the Midlands at least, an exceptional season for the perfect development of mangels, for, whereas the absence of rain in September caused the swede crop to be nearly burnt up, the mangel crop, already well established, was enabled to mature well, so that when it was pulled it was a perfectly ripened crop. This was the result of the steady transference to the root of food constituents elaborated by the leaves, and of the storing up of the same in the root without any of that second growth of leaf which continued rainfall in September might have occasioned, and which would have resulted in the production of a more or less immature root. It might be assumed, then, that the early feeding of mangel in such a season as 1898-9 would be less likely to be attended by risk than ordinarily. The mangels grown were "Golden Tankard," and the first lot was pulled on October 11 and pitted; the second lot was taken up on October 27 and 28, and the last lot on November 13. The line upon which it was determined that the experiment should proceed was that of giving mangels to fattening bullocks along with an ordinary diet of cake, corn, and chaff, and, in addition, to give certain foods which were generally believed to have the property of checking "scouring." Among the suggestions which have been made to minimise the risk of 66 scouring from mangelfeeding have been the feeding of the roots in limited quantity, the giving of undecorticated cotton cake (the husk of this being astringent), the use of long hay in abundance, the giving of bean meal, and so on. It was determined to try the three last-named. Inasmuch as the very purpose of the experiment was to see to what extent mangels might be used without actually causing "scouring," the experiment must be looked on as such, and not as one on the fattening of stock by the different methods of feeding employed. Mangels were accordingly given to the bullocks in increasing quantities, the animals carefully watched, and, as soon as signs of "looseness" began to be noticed, the respective additional foods were increased, when possible, with the view of seeing whether they were successful or not in preventing the "scouring.' The bullocks were weighed at intervals, and their live and carcass weights recorded as usual; but, for the reasons given above, this did not constitute the real point of the experiment. The bullocks experimented on were twelve Shorthorns, rising three years old, which had been purchased the previous May and had been since kept at the Farm under the same conditions. At the time the experiment began they were valued at 147. 158. a head. On December 1, 1898, after being fed first thing in the morning on a limited ration, the twelve bullocks were weighed at about 10 A.M., and divided into three lots of four each, the foods assigned to them at commencement being as follows: Practically, Lot I. had 2 lb. per head daily of the undecorticated cotton cake given to them, and Lot II. 2 lb. per head daily of bean meal, to see if these additions prevented the "scouring," while, in the case of Lot III., linseed cake was given up to 6 lb., to make up for the extra cotton cake or bean meal that Lots I. and II. had. The quantity of long hay, starting at 5 lb. per head daily, was left to be increased as soon as there was any sign of "looseness" in the animals. Mangels were used in the following way: they were brought in from the pits and kept in the feeding shed, being left exposed there for two or three days before they were used, and they were sliced twelve hours before using. On December 2, 1898, the bullocks of all three lots began with 28 lb. per head daily of mangels, and as after a week's feeding there was no sign of "looseness," the quantity was increased on December 11 to 35 lb. a day each. This seemed too much for them, as, almost at once, most of the bullocks showed signs of "scouring"; this was especially the case with No. 2 (cotton cake), Nos. 6 and 8 (bean meal), and No. 11 (hay); these animals were all uneasy, Nos. 6 and 11 being feverish, and breaking out into a sweat and not feeding properly. Thus far it would seem that 28-30 lb. of mangels could be given quite well at starting, but that 35 lb. was too much; also that none of the additional foods exercised any marked influence, or superiority one over the other, in stopping the "scouring." The bullocks in Lots I. and II. had not got properly used to the undecorticated cotton cake and bean meal, and so it was of no use to increase the quantities of these. The bullocks preferred, indeed, to eat their litter when it was put in, though they had not taken their feed of cake and chaff. The animals in Lot III. (hay) had their amount of long hay increased by 2 lb., viz. to 7 lb. a head daily, and they took this better than the mixed chaff. The bullocks began to get better in a few days, and by December 17 only No. 8 (bean meal) and No. 11 (hay) remained excessively "loose." No. 11 had recovered by December 21, and No. 8, though still slightly "loose," looked and fed well again. On January 1, 1899, the additional foods were increased, viz., the cotton cake (Lot I.) to 4 lb. per head daily, bean meal (Lot II.) to 4 lb., and another 1 lb. of linseed cake was given to each animal of Lot III. (long hay). Hay chaff was now given to all the animals instead of the mixture of oat-straw chaff and hay chaff, and the quantity of chaff was raised from 9 lb. per head daily to 10 lb., long hay remaining at 3 lb. in Lots I. and II., and at 7 lb. in Lot III. The beasts now having taken regularly the 35 lb. of mangels per head daily, the quantity of roots was still further increased on January 1 to 40 lb. In Lot I. (cotton cake) Nos. 1 and 2 were slightly affected, but recovered by the end of the week; Nos. 3 and 4 were perfectly right; in Lot II. (bean meal) three bullocks were lightly "loose," one not at all; in Lot III. (hay) all four bullocks became very "loose," and continued fully a week so; they sweated profusely, seemed faint and listless, and ejected their excreta in a very watery state, Their coats became also markedly rough and " "staring." Observations taken again on January 16, 1899, showed all the bullocks in Lot I. (cotton cake) to be going on well; in Lot II. (bean meal) only one (No. 8) was slightly "loose," and the others quite satisfactory; while in Lot III. (hay) all were still "loose," two of them (Nos. 9 and 12) so badly that they were off their feed, and the roots had to be reduced again to 35 lb. per head daily. By January 21 this last lot (III.) were better, but had not thoroughly picked up again, and it was useless to increase the roots. But Lots I. and II. had gone on so well that the allowance of mangels was further increased to 45 lb. per head daily. On January 28 all the bullocks were weighed after limited feeding in the early morning, and they showed fairly uniform increase, except in the case of No. 12 (hay), which had all along been a bad "doer," and it was thought well at this stage to turn him out of the experiment altogether. The details of weights and gains are given in Table I., p. 563. The experience up to this point had been to show clearly that the giving of hay in quantity had been quite useless in checking "scouring," but that, if care was taken in the feeding, by giving such additional foods as undecorticated cotton cake and bean meal, the quantity of mangels given to bullocks could be gradually raised from 28 lb. to 35 lb., and then successively to 40 lb. and 45 lb. per head daily without doing harm. Long hay having failed, the plan of feeding Lot III. was from this time altered, and after the weighing of January 28 this set had given them : in place of the 7 lb. linseed cake that had been previously supplied. Long hay was still fed as before, also hay chaff, about 7-8 lb. hay chaff and 9-10 lb. long hay being the quantity of each taken. At the same time the cake to Lot I. (undecorticated cotton cake) was increased by 1 lb. of each sort, as also the cake and meal to Lot II. (bean meal), making the quantities per head daily in these cases :— The mangels were also increased to 50 lb. per head daily in Lots I. and II. on January 31. The bullocks seemed a good deal "blown out" by the mangels, but did not exhibit any "looseness." The three remaining animals in Lot III. (formerly hay lot) showed a surprising improvement with the altered feeding, and from that time went on much more satisfactorily. By March 19 it was clear that the bullocks in Lot I. (undecorticated cotton cake) had not made the progress that those of Lot II. (bean meal) had, and so it was decided to give them another 1 lb. (making 6 lb. in all) per head daily of linseed cake to finish them |