220 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



termine the relative advantages of growing beef, bj soiling, and by 

 pasturage. Tliese essays are of considerable length, and hardly 

 admissible here for that reason; and they are too minute, perhaps, 

 for a region where men run as they read, and conduct an experi- 

 ment by guessing. The results of several experiments, show in each 

 case, a marked advantage in favor of the cattle confined to the stall 

 or yards, in superior growth and fatness. It is remarked in this 

 country, that, cows long soiled, are in condition to be easily and 

 cheaply converted to good beef One of my cows, by reason of age, 

 •was slaughtered in December last, two weeks after being dried, 

 yielding seventy pounds of tallow; and the beef passed in the mar- 

 ket as a very nice article. 



5th. Greater product of milk. There has been a prevailing 

 impression among farmers, that, although the condition of the ani- 

 mal may be better, yet that the tendency of the food to milk is not 

 so great as when they are permitted to range in pastures. Such an 

 ^impression has no facts for a basis. 



A gentleman in Ulster County, N. Y., well known as an exten- 

 sive and successful farmer, — R. L. Pell — has practiced soiling his 

 large stock of cows, oxen, horses and hogs. In relation to the quan- 

 tity of milk, he writes, "I have found, by actual experiment, that 

 cows, when fed in the yard at regular periods, with a change of 

 food, not allowing them at any time to be over-fed, and supplied at 

 all times with an abundance of water, have doubled their milk ; that 

 is to say, the same cows that were one year depastured gave, when 

 confined, twice the quantity of milk, and of a much richer quality." 



Mr. Anthony, of R. I., says, " Ordinary keeping is not calcula- 

 ted to develope the milking properties of cows. Those that I have 

 purchased, have rarely given more than two-thirds the quantity of 

 milk the first, as in subsequent seasons, the feed in both cases being 

 the same." 



In England, two cows, kept on a small allotment of land, in nine 

 and a half months made four hundred pounds of butter. One cow 

 ■was stall-fed all the year, and yielded a third more than the other, 

 ■which had the grazing of half an acre. 



I have before me a multitude of opinions, based on trial and ob- 

 servation, but will only add here, briefly, my own experience. The 

 cows that I have partially soiled, beginning with the summer of 



