182 REPORT ON THE AGRICULTURE OF PERTHSHIRE. 



a deliberate study of the subject as applicable to it, and not by 

 the introduction of the system with which they were themselves 

 already familiar on a different soil. The Carse farmers have there- 

 fore contented themselves with imitating the light-land farmers. 

 They saw them feeding cattle fat with turnips, and they thought 

 they would feed cattle fat with turnips also, and within the same 

 time of the year, thus having all the light-land cattle to compete 

 with theirs. All this, however, is a fatal mistake. Turnips are by 

 no means a crop specially suited to carse land. No doubt there 

 is much black land in the Carse that grows them well ; but in the 

 stiffer soils there is much additional labour and uncertainty in 

 getting a crop, and at best it is generally a very second-rate one. 

 On the other hand, no land in the world can grow finer summer 

 green crops than the Carse clays. Clover and tares, provided the 

 land is in fair condition, are crops peculiarly suited to the Carse ; 

 and if such be the case, is it not reasonable to expect that they 

 should be largely grown, and that stock should be fed with them ? 

 Does not the whole matter resolve itself simply into this, that 

 the Carse farmers should feed cattle in summer instead of winter? 

 And is not Summer-feeding of cattle, in one word, the panacea 

 which the Carse farmers have it in their power to adopt, in order 

 to restore and maintain the condition of their land for grain 

 crops ? Would not such a system of management enable them to 

 make a handsome profit, both on grain and stock, and to pay their 

 rents without inconvenience ? By such a system it is not proposed 

 to reduce, but rather to increase the portion of land under grain, 

 adopting the seven-shift with four grain crops in place of the 

 six-shift with three ; but there must be little hay cut — none for 

 sale — and no more made than is required for the horses on the 

 farm. The breadth of potatoes or beans must be reduced, and 

 turnips and tares substituted for them. And with regard to the 

 division in grass, the ryegrass should only be sown at the rate of 

 two pecks per acre, in place of a bushel, as hitherto, with ten 

 pounds of red clover. Moreover, the young grass should be cut as 

 early and rapidly for the first cutting as possible, and thereby the 

 second cutting will be good and early, soon after the time that 

 the first cutting is completed. For this purpose a much larger 

 stock will be required than most people have any idea of. It 

 was found, in the summer of 1865, on a home farm in the Carse, 

 that the first cutting kept four two-years' old cattle per Scots 

 acre, and lasted for two months. Four Scots acres kept eleven 

 two-year olds, five cart horses, and half fed eight milch cows. 

 The proportion applicable to the feeding cattle was about a 

 quarter of an acre each, and when sold in August, L.2 per month 

 was got for the soiling of each of them, while fifty tons of first- 

 rate manure were made by them. But this is quite a new thing 

 in this district. There is scarcely a farm in the Carse that has 



