THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



371 



straw into manure as profitably as beafsts did. He was 

 satisfied that for tbe last few years sheep had piiid far 

 better than beasts. 



Mr. Bradshaw (Knole, Guildford) eaid, the subject as it 

 was introduced that evening, was in a great measure confined 

 to a particular locality — that of Cambridgeshire. As regarded 

 the house feeding of sheep, the observations of Mr. Kuston 

 were very valuable. He could corroborate them to a great 

 extent by what he himself saw, in the year 1858, in the 

 neighbourhood of Versailles, where 700 sheep were kept under 

 cover in two separate buildings, and did not exhibit any 

 signs of rot or lameness— a fact which he attributed entirely 

 to the way in which they were bedded. As to the relative 

 value of sheep and bullocks, every man must consider his own 

 locality. For example, what might be very good in Lincoln- 

 shire, might not be so in the neighbourhood where he (Mr. 

 Bradsbaw) resided. He considered that the best and most 

 profitable system was that of a division between sheep and 

 bullocks. For the present season, the scarcity of roots had 

 forced upon them great economy in the use of that material, 

 and they would probably in after-years effect a diminution of 

 the expense of carting roots from the land. He had in store 

 20 bullocks, and giving them IG bushels of turnips per day, he 

 found them thrive better on that quantity, than they did 

 when he gave them twice as much ; they did not consume 

 lib. more chaff than they did when he gave them a considerable 

 additional quantity of turnips. They had also 121bs. of straw 

 and 91b3. of hay ; and he found that he could not get any 

 more into them (laughter). Talk of bullocks not paying ! 

 That depended on the way in which they managed them. If 

 they bought a bullock in tbe mouth of October, and put him 

 up at £15 or £16, it would not pay; every practical man 

 knows that. He had bought them at that price. 



Mr. Coleman: Do you mean for feeding, or to keep in 

 store ? 



Mr. Bradshaw : For feeding and selling them off six 

 months afterwards. If they bought them young, and reared 

 them on the farm, they had to put their hand lightly in 

 their pockets, and keep them till they were two years and six 

 mouths, or three years old, which was his own practice, they 

 would pay. Although he put them up in October, he never 

 began till the Ist of January to give them concentrated food 

 —oilcake, barley, or whatever he might choose to supply them 

 with. He gave them Slbs. of cake per day for the first 

 month, 41b3. for the second monlh, and 51bs. for the third 

 mouth; never exceeding 51bs. per day. His first beasts, 

 wliich commenced with cake on the 1st of January, would go off 

 tbe next day (April 2nd). As regarded sheep, he considered 

 that sheep bred and reared upon the farm, and fatted upon it 

 throughout, would yield as good a result as they had heard of 

 that evening. Perhaps the result was about equal to that in 

 the case of bullocks ; but it should be recollected that with 

 sheep they got a great deal of valuable manure consumed on 

 the land which left its marks, while by the consumption of 

 their other food by bullocks they obtained a large quantity of 

 manure which was valuable for other crops. 



Mr. James Thomas (Dibdeu, Hants) said: As regarded 

 the question whether sheep might as manufacturers of manure 

 be made superior to bullocks, there could be no doubt that on 

 all good sheep farms, where the land would allow of turnips 

 being fed upon it, the cheapest mode of manuring was by con- 

 suming the crop there. The practice of Hampshire, and of 

 the gre»ter part of Wiltshire, wm to carry the litter on the 



land and plough it in ; and this ensured a rich crop the next 

 year. Mr. Ruston spoke of land where you could not feed. 

 The question was, how best to employ roots? When £100 

 was laid out on artificial food, sheep would, with the wool, 

 pay better than bullocks ; but it was a question whether ma- 

 nure from sheep alone would be as eflicacious in raising cereal 

 crops as if it were mixed with ox-dung. He had little doubt 

 that sheep-dung was as good as the other, but there were diffi- 

 culties in the way of applying it. He thought Mr. Ruston 

 had exaggerated the difficulty of making cattle pay. It waa 

 essential to success that the grazier should have judgment 

 equal to the picking out of the oxen which would improve 

 most on a given quantity of food. There were thousands and 

 tens of thousands sold in the fairs of England which no skill 

 on the part of the agriculturist or grazier could turn into meat. 

 For want of judgment many farmers bought cattle of that 

 kind, and when they wanted to sell them in the spring there 

 was a loss instead of a profit. Having fed many hundreds of 

 sheep in yards, he would remark that, in order that sheep fed 

 in yards might be kept in perfect health, and their feet pre- 

 served from rot, the yard should be thoroughly underdrained, 

 so that no moisture would remain under the animal. On one 

 farm in Hertfordshire the sheep had fatted entirely on boards. 

 They did not undergo the agony that oxen did when lying on 

 boards. In this case the boards were perforated with holes, 

 which allowed ell the moisture to pass through ; and he had 

 found sheep under such circumstances enjoying themselves as 

 much as if they were lying on straw or in their folds. Sheep 

 would thrive better in that way than in any other ; but the 

 straw would not be converted into dung. Would it not be 

 better to keep them under cover and give them artificial food, 

 while you made straw into dung through the action of the 

 bullocks? In reference to the remarks of Mr. Bradshaw, he 

 would observe that a 100-stone bullock (81bs. to the stone) in 

 good heart would eat lOOlbs. of turnips per day, a 90-8tone 

 bullock 901bs., and an SO-stone bullock SOlbs. Having tried 

 that food in larger and smaller amounts, he had found that 

 that was the quantity which beasts consumed to the greatest 

 advantage. He could not agree that it would be judicious for 

 mangold wurzel, straw, or oilcake to be consumed entirely by 

 sheep : he thought the conjunction of the two would prove 

 most profitable to the farmer and to the public (Hear, hear). 

 With regard to the extraordinary difference between the qua- 

 lities of roots grown on different soils and in different localities 

 he would remark that a hundredweight of turnips grown on 

 some very fine sheep land were not equal to half a hundred- 

 weight grown on heavier soil. In Aberdeenshire, Fifeshire, 

 and other eastern counties of Scotland, where animals were 

 fed with turnips and hay alone, bullocks were sent forth of 

 better quality than bullocks from Norfolk which had been fed 

 on hay, straw, and oilcake. 



Mr. J. F. Saberton (Doddington, Cambridge) said he 

 was led to rise by the remark of Mr. Coleman, to the effect 

 that the fen farmers were not skilful in selecting bullocks. 

 That might be the fact: In the fens they were not breeders 

 of bullocks. They bought calves from Woburn, and that side 

 of Buckinghamshire ; aud if Mr. Coleman visited them, he 

 would find as fine cattle and as good judges as he would meet 

 with anywhere else. He wished some gentleman had made 

 a hearty attempt to refute the details of Mr. Ruston, Having 

 made some inquiries in their neighbourhood, he felt bound 

 to confirm what that gentleman bad said. He knew several 

 gentlemen farming SCO or 1,000 acres, who, having been graziers 

 and ffttt«ners of bullocks for many years, hnd Utterly directed 



