On increasing our Supplies of Animal Food. 349 



and to no subject, we are convinced, could an agricultural expe- 

 rimenter more usefully devote himself than this. If a cultivation 

 of this kind would pay, it would be a source of immense wealth 

 in many parts of Ireland, where waste-land reclamation proceeds 

 so slowly mainly because of the unprofitableness of corn-culti- 

 vation under their watery skies. The results of our first estimate, 

 therefore, must be the standard with which to compare the pro- 

 ductiveness of grass, and it has been seen that the former, be- 

 sides the large crops of grain on the arable land, yields more 

 meat than the latter. The conclusion which therefore seems to 

 be unavoidable is, that in cases when equal skill and care have 

 been brought to bear both on arable and pasture farming, the 

 latter might be converted without diminishing, and probably with 

 an increase to the national supply of animal food. What other 

 advantages would follow the breaking up of poor grass-lands 

 have already been considered in this Journal. 



Suppose, then, that the land in high fertility, drained, ma- 

 nured, and cultivated as our first section requires, is arable, the 

 question still remains, What crops are to be grown upon it? 

 What rotation of crops M'ill it be most advisable to adopt? Of 

 course the ultimate determination on this point will depend on 

 the consideration of profits to be expected under the existing 

 circumstances of markets, climate^ labour, <Scc. But we may 

 refer to some of the better known successions in use, and discuss 

 their relative merits as meat producers without regard in the mean 

 time to the economics of the question. In the first place, how- 

 ever, it seems proper to remark that not only is a good selection 

 of crops, but a right choice also of the best sorts of each, required. 

 The question is not only in what crops shall our fertility be de- 

 veloped, but what varieties of each will most successfully exhibit 

 it. We must not only ask whether swedes or mangold-wurzel 

 are the most nourishing per acre, but also whether Skirving's or 

 Matson's kind of the one — the long red or the globe variety of 

 the other — is the best to grow. Two kinds of any crop may make 

 an equal draught upon the fertility of the land, but they may 

 differ very materially in the quantity of food they respectively 

 provide ; and that of course is the measure of their use to the 

 farmer. Twenty tons of Swedish turnips may mean 16 of bulb 

 and 4 of leaf, or 10 of bulb and 10 of leaf; the latter would be 

 equally severe upon the land as the former (probably severer), 

 but the former is by far the more valuable result; and a result 

 of this kind is much more frequently the consequence of habit 

 of growth peculiar to variety than of circumstances connected 

 with soil or with climate. 



It opens up an extensive subject connected with the one in 

 hand, when we remark that this habit of growth — the distinction 



