316 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 



Smithfield Market is, the improvement of the husbandry of the 

 country, particularly by the introduction of what is called the 

 alternate husbandry, arid the cultivation of green crops. The 

 cultivation of turnips and swedes is comparatively modern ; and 

 perhaps no single circumstance has effected so great an improve 

 ment in the agricultural condition of the country. Formerly, 

 cattle were fatted, if fatted at all, upon grass and hay, and these 

 of inferior kinds ; the store stock were wintered upon straw, and 

 came to the spring in such a condition that the greater part of 

 the summer was required, in order to recover what they had 

 lost in the winter. Now, the introduction of the artificial 

 grasses, clover, and rye-grass, the growing of vetches, rape, 

 turnips, swedes, carrots, and mangel-wurzel, and the use of 

 oil -cake, have multiplied in an extraordinary manner the re 

 sources of the farmer ; and the practice of folding his sheep, and 

 stall-feeding his fatting beasts, give him a command of feed, and, 

 if I may so say, such a control over the season, that the results 

 are most remarkable in the supply of the market, at all times of 

 the year, with animals of the finest description. 



I may be inquired of, what I think of the English meats. 

 The fatness of the beef and mutton is most remarkable. I have 

 seen single beasts in the United States as fat as any I have seen 

 here ; but these are comparatively rare exceptions ; and here the 

 general character of the beasts and sheep is, in this respect, most 

 striking. It would, however, I fear, be hopeless to attempt to 

 persuade an Englishman of that which is my honest conviction 

 that our meats are sweeter to the taste than those which I have 

 eaten here. Oar poultry is incomparably better. An English 

 man will be likely to set this down as mere prejudice, which 

 possibly it may be, for who can escape such prejudices, or be 

 fully conscious of them when they exist ? but I believe it is not 

 prejudice, but Indian corn, (the grain upon which our animals are 

 fatted,) which gives to their meat a peculiar sweetness, which is 

 not produced by other feed. Our beef animals are not. killed 

 until from five to seven years old, and our sheep seldom until 

 three years old. Here sheep are killed at about fifteen months, 

 and beasts at two years and upwards. The flesh of these young 

 animals is wanting in that consistency which more age would 

 give, though an extreme on the other side, and the hard-working 

 of our oxen until eight and ten years old, is liable to give a 



