Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 401, March 1849. Various
quality, compared with our other cultivated grains. This has been long known in practice in the northern parts of the island, where it has for ages formed the staple food of the mass of the population, though it was doubted and disputed in the south so much, as almost to render the Scotch ashamed of their national food. Chemistry has recently, however, set the matter at rest, and is gradually bringing oatmeal again into general favour. We believe that the robust health of many fine families of children now fed upon it, in preference to wheaten flour, is a debt they owe, and we trust will not hereafter forget, to chemical science.
On oatmeal Mr Stephens gives us the following information: —
"The portion of the oat crop consumed by man is manufactured into meal. It is never called flour, as the millstones are not set so close in grinding it as when wheat is ground, nor are the stones for grinding oats made of the same material, but most frequently only of sandstone – the old red sandstone or greywacke. Oats, unlike wheat, are always kiln-dried before being ground; and they undergo this process for the purpose of causing the thick husk, in which the substance of the grain is enveloped, to be the more easily ground off, which it is by the stones being set wide asunder; and the husk is blown away, on being winnowed by the fanner, and the grain retained, which is then called groats. The groats are ground by the stones closer set, and yield the meal. The meal is then passed through sieves, to separate the thin husk from the meal. The meal is made in two states: one fine, which is the state best adapted for making into bread, in the form called oat-cake or bannocks; and the other is coarser or rounder ground, and is in the best state for making the common food of the country people – porridge, Scottice, parritch. A difference of custom prevails in respect to the use of these two different states of oatmeal, in different parts of the country, the fine meal being best liked for all purposes in the northern, and the round or coarse meal in the southern counties; but as oat-cake is chiefly eaten in the north, the meal is there made to suit the purpose of bread rather than of porridge; whereas, in the south, bread is made from another grain, and oatmeal is there used only as porridge. There is no doubt that the round meal makes the best porridge, when properly made – that is, seasoned with salt, and boiled as long as to allow the particles to swell and burst, when the porridge becomes a pultaceous mass. So made, with rich milk or cream, few more wholesome dishes can be partaken by any man, or upon which a harder day's work can be wrought. Children of all ranks in Scotland are brought up on this diet, verifying the poet's assertion —
"The halesome parritch, chief o' Scotia's food."
Forfarshire has long been famed for the quality of its brose and oat-cake, while the porridge of the Borders has as long been equally famous. It is so everywhere, the sharp soil producing the finest cake-meal, and clay land the best meal for boiling. Of meal from the varieties of the oat cultivated, that of the common Angus oat is the most thrifty for a poor man, though its yield in meal is less in proportion to the bulk of corn."
Much valuable information is given on the management of manure-heaps, and the forming of composts in winter. We especially recommend to the reader's attention section 2043, which is too long to extract. Railways have done much to benefit the farmer: in speaking of composts, our author gives us the following example of a local injury produced by them: —
"In the vicinity of villages where fish are cured and smoked for market, refuse of fish heads and guts make an excellent compost with earth. Near Eyemouth and Burnmouth, on the Berwickshire coast, 30 barrels of fish refuse, with as much earth from the head-ridges as will completely cover the heap, are sufficient for an imperial acre. The barrel contains 30 gallons, and 4 barrels make a cart-load, and the barrel sells for 1s. 6d. From 400 to 600 barrels may be obtained for each farm in the neighbourhood, in the course of the season. Since the opening of the North British railway, the curing of the fish is given up, much to the loss of the farmers in that locality; and the fishermen now send, by the railway, the fish in a fresh state to the larger towns at a distance. Thus, railways produce advantage to some, whilst they cause loss to others. In the northern counties of Scotland, fish refuse is obtained in large quantities during the herring fishing season. On the coast of Cornwall, the pilchard fishing affords a large supply of refuse for composts."
In regard to the calving of cows, to milking, and to the rearing of calves, we have information as full, as minute, and as easily conveyed, as on any of the other subjects which have hitherto engaged our attention. When treating of the diseases to which cows, on calving, are subject, we have been interested with the following case: —
"I may here mention an unaccountable fatality which overtook a short-horn cow of mine, in Forfarshire, immediately after calving. She was an extraordinary milker, giving not less than thirty quarts a-day in summer on grass; but what was more extraordinary, for two calvings the milk never dried up, but continued to flow to the very day of calving, and after that event returned in increased quantity. In the third year she went naturally dry for about one month prior to the day of reckoning; every precaution, however, was taken that the milk should dry up without giving her any uneasiness. She calved in high health, the milk returned as usual in a great flush after calving, but it was impossible to draw it from the udder; not a teat would pass milk, all the four being entirely corded. Quills were first introduced into the teats; and then tubes of larger size were pushed up into the body of the udder. A little milk ran out of only one of them – hope revived; but it soon stopped running, and all the art that could be devised by a skilful shepherd proved unavailing to draw milk from the udder; rubbing and softening the udder with goose-fat, making it warmer with warm water – all to no purpose. To render the case more distressing, there was not a veterinary surgeon in the district. At length the udder inflamed, mortified, and the cow died in the most excruciating agony on the third day, from being in the highest state of health, though not in high condition, as her milking propensity usually kept her lean. No loss of the kind ever affected my mind so much – that nothing could be done to relieve the distress of an animal which could not help itself. I was told afterwards by a shepherd, to whom I related the case, that I should have cut off all the teats, and although the horrid operation would, of course, have destroyed her for a milk cow, she might have been saved for feeding. He had never seen a cow so operated on; but it suggested itself to him in consequence of having been obliged at times to cut off the teats of ewes to save their lives. The suggestion I think is good. The cow was bred by Mr Currie, when at Brandon in Northumberland."
Is there really no remedy for so distressing a case as this but that which his shepherd recommended? He might, for the benefit of his readers, have consulted our friend Professor Dick, whose opinions he so frequently and so deservedly quotes.
The following paragraph is very striking, as showing the cruel absurdities which ignorance will sometimes not only perpetrate, but actually establish, as a kind of custom in a country.
"Tail-ill or Tail-slip.– A very prevalent notion exists in Scotland amongst cattle-men, that when the tail of an ox or of a cow feels soft and supple immediately above the tuft of hair, there is disease in it; and it is called the tail-ill, or tail-slip. The almost invariable remedy is to make large incision with the knife along the under side of the soft part, stuff the wound full of salt and butter, and sometimes tar, and roll it up with a bandage for a few days, and when the application is removed, the animal is declared quite recovered. Now, this notion is an absurdity. There is no such disease as that imputed; and as the poor animal subjected to its cure is thus tormented, the sooner the absurd notion is exposed the better. The notion will not soon be abandoned by the cattle-men; but the farmer ought to forbid the performance of such an operation on any of his cattle without his special permission, and the absurd practice will fall into desuetude."
We have not space for the remainder of this paragraph, which contains Professor Dick's demonstration that no such disease exists as the so-called Tail-ill. Mr Stephens' narrations are more like a tale from the times of witchcraft, when old women were supposed to have the power of bringing disease upon cattle, than of those days of general enlightenment.
In sections 2268 and 2269, there is a recipe for making a cow which has once calved give a full supply of milk all the rest of her life, and which recipe is said to be infallible. This is a bon-bouche, however, which we shall leave our readers to turn up for themselves;