THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE, 



485 



the fields in which they are kept, whilst it is not econo- 

 mical in respect of food, and I question much if the 

 manure is so useful as it might be : the cattle selecting 

 sheltered spots to lie upon when they give the ground 

 an over dose, causing sour rank grass to grow, which 

 they reject the following season. As I am obliged to 

 keep some stock in the fields during the winter, I have 

 lately erected two sheds, in which I find the cattle lie 

 every night, and by keeping them littered there is a 

 consid'-rable quantity of useful manure accumulating at 

 distant parts of the f arm ; and I am inclined to think 

 that for young stock, and when the land is thoroughly 

 drained, it may be advantageous to pursue 

 this system at a distance from the homestead, as it 

 saves the cartage of the hay-house and makes some 

 manure where it is generally much wanted. I may 

 mention that the sheds I have put up are very simple; 

 the arm of each of them is about 500 square feet, 

 afibrding accommodation for sixteen young beast coming 

 Iwo years old, at a cost of £li each shed, including 

 all the materials (excepting the straw and labour). This 

 part of the subject opens the question of the effect of the 

 droppings of the cattle in the open fields. It appears 

 from the analysis of Dr. Voelcker that fresh manure 

 contains very little soluble fertilizing matter; and that it 

 is only as decomposition takes place that it becomes so- 

 luble, and fitted for the food of plants. Now droppings 

 lying on the ground, exposed to drying wind?, are not 

 favourably placed for inducing decomposition, and I 

 believe that even when beaten about, the ciTect will 

 not be nearly so advantageous to the farmer as if the 

 manure was collected into heaps, mixed with earth, 

 which retains the soluble nitrogenous and other sub- 

 stances induced by fermentation ; and after being spread, 

 the first rain carries them to the roots of the grass. It 

 may have occurred to you that we do not require to beat 

 our grass grounds to any great extent after the cattle 

 have been running in them all the summer ; how is this ? 

 Observe the customers we then have for this part of our 

 farm produce ; sometimes the droppings are instantly 

 covered by innumerable flies ; at others rooks and other 

 birds pecking away at them, show that they have be- 

 come the food of various worms and insects, by whom, 

 on turning it over, we find it to be thoroughly honey- 

 combed, and reduced to a mere skeleton. Here is evi- 

 dently a great waste of fertilising matter. I have seen 

 persons employed collecting the manure, and carting it 

 off in the vale of Berkeley ; and I find the practice thus 

 recommended by Mr. Thomson in the Royal Agricultu- 

 ral Society's Journal for last year (No. 41, p. 255). 

 One of the cheapest and most effective plans, is to em- 

 ploy an old man with a donkey-cart to go round the 

 pastures collecting the droppings of the cattle, and 

 making them into compost with road scrapings, di'^-L 

 cleanings, &c. If a manure collector be once appointcdj 

 numerous odds and ends of fertilizing substances will be 

 found available, which would individually be worth little, 

 and which are now wasted, &c. But the collection of 

 manure should be incessant. The droppings of horses 

 and cattle, especially if collected fresh, form a very im- 

 portant source of compost, and the improTement is two- 



fold. 1st in the saving of that which is otherwise to a 

 great extent, wasted ; 2ndly by the cleaning of the pas- 

 ture, and the much more uniform grazing of the cattle 

 when the droppings are not allowed to remain and pro- 

 duce coarse tufts for some months after. He recom- 

 mends the turning of the compost heap once at 

 least. I will next proceed to the consideration of the 

 effects on the stock, feed, and manure, when the cattle 

 are wintered in open yards, without sheds. In such, if 

 there is a warm comfortable spot well littered, the animals 

 will soon select their bed ; but there is really no one 

 point to recommend such a mode of wintering stock ; 

 it cannot be healthy for them to be subjected to all the 

 changes of our varying climate. Animals so exposed must 

 require more food ; and as to the manure made by them, 

 it is hardly possible to devise a more effectual system 

 for its extravagant waste. It may be as well to discuss 

 here generally the question of yard-made manure, as it 

 will apply equally, perhaps with greater force, to that 

 made in yards with sheds attached. Straw and drop- 

 pings from the cattle, did they remain in their primitive 

 condi'.ion, would be of little use in fertilizing the land, 

 because a very small proportion of them is soluble ; by 

 degrees, however, a slow fermentation ensues, the parti- 

 cles re-arrange themselves, and very valuable fertilizing 

 products are formed, which are soluble ; so that, were 

 the process carried far enough, the whole of the valuable 

 part of the manure might be washed out, and what Mr. 

 C. Lawrence calls the dry body whose spirit is departed 

 alone be left to be carried to the field by neighbour 

 Drychaff's creaking hearse. Now, consider, the manure 

 left exposed in a yard is favourably placed for undergoing 

 rapid decomposition (unless it is literally covered with 

 water), it is well exposed, occasionally wetted by genial 

 showers, not too hard compressed by the treading cattle, 

 as it is spread over an extensive surface ; everything is 

 promising for a good brewing, and in due course down 

 comes the pelting storm ; and the rich porter-coloured 

 stream flowing from the yard, and down the adjoining 

 stream, but too truly tells of the efficiency of the decom- 

 position and the value of departed worth. I feel confident 

 that there is no satisfactory argument for manufacturing 

 manure in exposed yards, where it is subjected to be thus 

 robbed of its most valuable constituents. It may be 

 asked, what are we to do with our straw in cases where 

 we have so much, and, our live stock being principally 

 sheep, it is only by exposing in yards that we can con- 

 vert it into manure at all ? I should be glad to hear 

 your opinions upon this point; but I question much 

 whether we have by any means arrived at the maximum 

 use of straw as fodder for sheep as well as cattle. The 

 late Sir George Sinclair, in his work on " Husbandry" 

 (vol. 1, page 378), in 1844, mentions a saying of Dr. 

 K-'ith's—" Take care of the straw, the corn will take 

 c„re of itself" ; and he mentions a remark of Marshall's, 

 "That if a Yorkshire and a Norfolk farmer got equal 

 quantities of straw, the Yorkshireman would make hia 

 cattle eat every particle, and would scarcely have any to 

 litter their stalls with, whilst the Norfolk man would 

 convert the whole into muck ; the Yorkshireman would 

 keep more cattle, and would carry out his dung at less 



