CHAPTER VIII. 



COWS, SHEEP, HOGS, AND POULTRY. 



293. Cows. With respect to cows, need we any other facts 

 than those of Mr. BYRD to prove how advantageous the SweSish, 

 turnip culture must be to those who keep cows in order to make 

 butter and cheese. The greens come to supply the place of grass, 

 and to add a month to the feeding on green food. They come 

 just at the time when cows, in this country, are let go dry. It is 

 too hard work to squeeze butter out of straw and corn stalks ; 

 and, if you could get it out, it would not, pound for pound, be 

 nearly so good as lard, though it would be full as white. To give 

 cows fine hay no man thinks of ; and, therefore, dry they must be 

 from November until March, though a good piece of cabbages 

 added to the turnip greens would keep them on in milk to theit 

 calving time ; or, till within a month of it at any rate. The bulbs 

 of Swedish turnips are too valuable to give to cows ; but the 

 cabbages, which are so easily raised, may be made subservient 

 to their use. 



294. Sheep. In the First Part I have said how I fed my sheep 

 upon Swedish turnips. I have now only to add, that, in the case 

 of early lambs for market, cabbages, and especially savoys, in 

 February and March, would be excellent for the ewes. Sheep 

 love green. In a turnip field, they never touch the bulb, till every 

 bit of green is eaten. I would, therefore, for this purpose, have 

 some cabbages, and, if possible, of the savoy kind. 



295. Hogs. This is the main object, when we talk of raising 

 green and root crops, no matter how near to or how far from the 

 spot where the produce of the farm is to be consumed. For, 

 pound for pound, the hog is the most valuable animal ; and, 

 whether fresh or salted, is the most easily conveyed. Swedish 

 turnips or cabbages or Mangel Wurzel will fatten an ox : but, 

 that which would, in four or five months fatten the ox, would keep 

 fifteen August Pigs from the grass going to the grass coming, 

 on Long Island. Look at their worth in June, and compare it 

 with the few dollars that you have got by fatting the ox ; and look 

 also at the manure in the two cases. A farmer, on this Island 

 fatted two oxen last winter upon corn. He told me, after he had 

 sold them, that, if he had given the oxen away, and sold the corn, 



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