THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE, 



369 



Btraw-chaff, with roots, will consume 12 to ISlb?. of the dry 

 substance of such mixed food per week for every lOOlbs. of 

 live weight, and will give lib. increase for every 12 to 131bs. 

 dry substance so consumed. Sheep so fattening will consume 

 about 151b3. of the dry substance of such mixed food per 

 lOOlbs. live weight, and will increase lib. live weight for 

 about 91bs. of the dry substance of this food." I need not 

 comment upon this. The facts are clear and intelligible. It 

 appears that the sheep consume rather more of this mixed 

 food per lOOlba. live weight per week than the bullocks do, 

 but that they give an iucreaae of live weight in still greater 

 proportion. I have now tried to look at the subject before 

 us in its varied aspects. I have endeavoured to define the 

 terms in which the subject was couched, and to explain the 

 meaning I designed to attach to them. I have also given 

 somewhat at length the details and particulars connected with 

 ray own experience, and have to these added the testimony 

 of others. I now feel that I need say but little more. The 

 facts that I have given remain to be affirmed or controverted, 

 and the opinions I have expressed to be approved or disputed, 

 and the arguments I have advanced to be shown to be logical 

 syllogisms or fallacies. The decision upon all these points is 

 in your hands, and I confidently leave it there, feeling as- 

 Bured that, in the discussion which shall follow, that candour 

 and fairness which characterises your conduct at all times, will 

 not in this instance be departed from. The question, how far 

 sheep can supplant bullocks as manufacturers of mauure ? is 

 important, and merits calm and deliberate attention. Of 

 course, where no roots at all can be grown, the question of 

 sheep in yards cannot be entertaiued. But upon farms re- 

 sembling my own, where roots can be grown, but where 

 the quality of all the natural food is inferior, and where 

 the land is more healthy, and its produce more adapted 

 for sheep than for bullocks, I cannot resist the con- 

 viction that sheep may be " advantageously substituted for 

 bullocks in the manufacture of manure." And experience 

 has convinced me that the three leading objections urged 

 against the system to which I have adverted, and which I 

 have endeavoured to show to be groundless, were fears rather 

 than experiences. Some active imagination gave them birth, 

 and fired them with all its own feverisbness. They inspired 

 terror for a while; and imagination pictured huge straw- 

 stacks all over the farm, and hopping, pining eheep all over 

 the yards, and failing crops all over the fields ; and the neces- 

 sary consequence of all — no effects in the bank. But they 

 had no existence in fact. They could not bear the test of close 

 reasoning and everyday experience. We conclude, then, as 

 we began, retaining " Onward 1" as our motto, and desiring 

 still to "live and learn." 



Mr. Robert Smith (Emmett's Grange, South Molton) 

 said, in his earlier days, he was very conversant with the 

 management of sheep, and he wrote a paper on the results of 

 his practice in one of the early numbers o( the Journal of the 

 Royal Agricultural Societij. In that paper, which was pub- 

 lished about the year lf548, he reported on some twenty ex- 

 periments as to the amount of food which sheep would eat, 

 the difference in the consumption of roots when artificial 

 food was supplied, and the effect of warmth as regarded 

 consumption in the yard upon straw, the open field-fold, 

 ' and upon grass with sheds. He thought it might be well 

 for some of them to refer to that paper, and examine the 

 practical results there recorded. Mr. Ruston had given 

 them two points of data : one related to the black moors of 



Cambridgeshire, where that gentleman resided, which was 

 familiar to him (Mr. Smith) as a Lincolnshire man. He 

 knew that the black lands of that district had been changed 

 from peaty matter into light black soil. In many parts of 

 Cambridgeshire the soil had been consolidated by clayey 

 matter dug from beneath ; but he presumed that up to that 

 moment Mr. Ruston had not used clayey matter on these 

 soils. 



Mr. Ruston : Oh, yes ! 



Mr. Smith said in that case he should have thought that 

 the quality of the roots and of the straw and rye-grass 

 would be superior to what it appeared to be from Mr. Rus- 

 ton's description, and which inferiority was the foundation 

 for the difficulties of his present position. This light soil re- 

 quired to be consolidated by the feet of sheep on the land, by 

 folding or otherwise ; thus it seemed to him better to con- 

 sume ryegrass on the land than to mow it, the use of it in 

 a yard created a difficulty wjiich had to be met bj' an in- 

 crease of the sheep in the yard. With regard to the 

 profitable and comparative consumption of food by cattle 

 and by sheep, Mr. Lawes had written most ably, and 

 the last Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society contained 

 the most valuable paper that had emanated from his pen. 

 There was one important point on which Mr. Ruston had 

 not given them the requisite information, He said that an 

 acre of mangold carried 20 to 25 sheep ; but he had not 

 given them the weight of the mangold grown on that acre 

 of land, neither had he laid before them the weight of the 

 vegetable food that the sheep consumed. Perhaps, at a 

 later period of the discussion, he would oblige them with 

 some data on that point. With respect to sheep in the yard, 

 he believed it would be found that warmth and clean- 

 liness, to prevent lameness and scouring, had a gi-eat deal 

 to do with the results. He would briefly give them his own 

 experience with respect to that question. Some of his sheep 

 were placed in open folds, some in sheds, some in yards 

 some in confined houses; and in every instance the con- 

 sumption of food was in proportion to the degree of 

 warmth, exercise, and consequent respirations. It should 

 be borne in mind that there was a standard heat in 

 the animal frame, and that when that, and no more, was 

 attained, all was right. As Lionel Playfair remarked, 

 when you go either above the standard or below it, you get 

 wrong. Warmth being equivalent to food, it was necessary 

 that they shquld adhere as closely as possible to a certain 

 degree of warmth in the animal frame. He (Mr. R. Smith) 

 had found that when animals were exposed to cold, they 

 would eat 251b3. of turnips a-day, and that when they got 

 into the yard, their consumption was only from 201bs. to 

 221bs., the average saving being 41b3. or 51bs. He had also 

 found a material difference caused by giving animals arti- 

 ficial food. He thought it was wise economy even to give 

 animals such food in the ploughed field ; it not only im- 

 proved the soil, but reduced the consumption of green food to 

 such an extent that the artificial food paid for itself. Twenty- 

 experiments of that kind would be found recorded in the 

 Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society, as having been 

 made by himself and his shepherd, and he could vouch for 

 the value of those experiments. 



The Chairman enquired whether Mr. Smith could give 

 them the comparative value of beast-feeding and sheep- 

 feeding. 



Mr. Smith said he had not tested that. 



