The usual mode of feeding Indian corn to cattle and hogs, is
wasteful in the extreme. The cob is not eaten, and the corn is
neither ground nor boiled. It is a well established physiological
fact, that the good health of animals requires, that the aliments
for the stomach should afford both nutriment and mechanical
distention in due proportions. In the usual method of feeding, these
proportions do not exist, and besides the nutritious quality is only
partially extracted. The grinding of corn is sometimes practised
by those who have mills, and boiling by those who have not. Meal
is sometimes mixed with hot water and fermented. All these are
improvements in feeding, but these are not sufficient. Lately, a
mill of cast iron has been invented, which converts both corn and
cob into meal, and is used also by tanners in grinding their bark.
This improvement is valuable. The cob, while it affords in itself
much nutriment, furnishes a degree of distension to the stomach,
which is necessary to its proper action. If to this grinding of the
cob and grain is superadded fermentation, or boiling, the economical
process is nearly complete. I have not time to say what the subject
requires in regard to fermentation. Boiling not only renders the
articles acted on soluble in the stomach, but it does more--it adds
nutriment furnished by the water itself. The experiments of Count
Rumford are full and satisfactory on this head. Let those who doubt
the nutritive qualities of water be reminded that many kinds of
fish live, grow and fatten in pure water, without any other food
whatever.---Every one has seen the gold fish, which have lived
for years in globes of pure water, that are sometimes put by the
curious into cages of canary birds. Water and air constitute the
entire aliment of vegetables, and give them bulk without diminishing
at all the quantity of soil in which they grow. The perfection of
feeding corn consists in preserving the cob, grinding the whole
into meal, and in the cookery. The iron mill is excellent, but too
expensive for most farmers. What is wanting, then, is to have the
corn, with its cob, powdered by some cheap and simple method, that
every one may avail themselves of. Such a one, accident lately made
me acquainted with; and I think it is so valuable that I am desirous
of seeing it introduced into general use, and shall attempt a
description of the machine by which the process was effected.
This machine I saw last summer in operation, on the road between
Lincolnton and Morgantown. It was a horizontal shaft with a beater
at one end, poised by the weight of water falling into an excavation
at the other. The shaft or helve was about fourteen, possibly
sixteen feet long. At two thirds of its length from the beater, it
rested by a notch across the sharpened edge of a piece of timber
lying in a transverse direction, serving as a pivot or fulcrum for
the shaft to move on. The beater was a piece of wood two feet, or
rather more, in length, fixed by a mortice and tennon to the end of
the shaft; its face was about two inches and a half in diameter,
and plated with iron. The mortar which received this pestal, or
beater, was the hollowed end of a log, wide at top, narrower at
bottom, and would contain nearly a bushel. The other, or shorter end
of the shaft, was excavated into a trough about three feet long,
eight inches wide, and the same in depth. The extreme inner end of
the trough formed an angle of ascent from the line of the bottom
of about 35 degrees, affording thereby an easy exit to the water
when depressed by its weight. This very simple machine, for I have
described the whole of it, was placed upon the small run of a spring
branch, where there was a descent of about two feet. The water was
conveyed into the trough by a spout which approached it at right
angles, and the trough was filled and discharged about twice in a
minute. Every morning, and again at evening, this mortar was filled
with ears of corn, which in twelve hours were found reduced to a
very fine meal. It was capable of converting to meal three or four
mortars full in a day, but two were sufficient for the use of the
plantation, and the mortar was attended to only when it could be
done with convenience. In a wet season, when the spring run afforded
more water, it moved with increased celerity, and was capable of
increased work. The machine was without cover, and I observed
barn-door fowls around it, but afraid of the motion of the shaft,
they never ventured to purloin from the mortar. The whole expense of
this, I think, could not have exceeded four or five dollars.
I know not the inventor of this machine. There were a few others, I
was told, in Lincoln and Burke. Its extreme simplicity, cheapness
and utility, and the means afforded to almost every one of putting
it in motion, ought to recommend it to general use. I am persuaded
this method of pounding corn, united to boiling or fermentation,
would double the value of crops for feeding. No rule is necessary
to be observed with regard to the dimensions, or proportions of the
machine. It must duly be noticed that the trough filled with water
is heavy enough to raise the bearer; and this can be ascertained,
and the proportions duly adjusted by experiment.----If Mr. Henderson
think but half as favourably of this machine as I do, he will give
the foregoing a place in his useful paper.