46 AGRICULTURE. 



to agricultural machine makers for the best apparatus for 

 preparing warm and cooked food for cattle. Many feeders 

 have within our knowledge gone to a great expense in put- 

 ting up such an apparatus. Every one of them has, we 

 believe, discontinued its .use. Nothing is so contemptible 

 as to sneer at unsuccessful experimentalists. Truly our 

 very best hopes for agriculture are founded on the entire 

 explosion of the spirit which used to prevail at our farmers' 

 market-tables in this respect. The reasonable experi- 

 mentalist is now looked up to as a general benefactor. 

 The patriotism of those who, having the means, make 

 promising experiments, either in agriculture or in anything 

 else, without a view to their own personal advantage, takes 

 a very rational line. Every one knows and regrets that 

 many discoveries, made by ingenious men in the spirited 

 prosecution of commercial enterprise, though they have 

 proved to be of great national advantage, have failed to 

 realize a profit to the inventors, and have in some unfor- 

 tunate cases resulted in their ruin. We are inclined to 

 believe that the experiment of giving warm and cooked 

 food to cattle has failed. 



We have already adverted to the very ambiguous sounds 

 emitted by the oracles when consulted On the subject of 

 the lodging of cattle. Our own experience, in a mode- 

 rately-sheltered situation, is, that beasts do best in open 

 sheds well flanked, but open to the S. or S. E. The 

 Norfolk man is prodigal of his straw, and his beasts come 

 out beautifully clean. The Midland and Western man is 

 perforce more economical, and the same cleanliness is 

 hardly to be attained. We know an instance in which 

 cows lie habitually without litter, and are decently clean. 

 Their hind legs stand on a strong flag (the produce of the 

 district, probably of the farm), and behind them is a 

 flagged trench fourteen inches wide and three deep. In 

 twelve years no injury has occurred to the cattle from this 

 trench. At regular intervals holes of an inch diameter 

 are drilled through the flag in the bottom of the trench, 



