LAYING OFF A FARM PASTURING. 43 



benefit the soil which their seeding would tax; it 

 will render the eradication of weeds from your till- 

 age a far easier task ; and* it will prevent your being 

 a nuisance to your neighbors. I am confident that 

 no one who has formed the habit of keeping down 

 the weeds in his pasture will ever abandon it. 



I think each pasture should have (though mine, as 

 yet, has not) a rude shed or other shelter whereto the 

 cattle may resort in case of storm or other inclemency. 

 How much they shrink as well as suffer from one cold, 

 pelting rain, few fully realize ; but I am sure that 

 " the merciful man" who (as the Scripture says) " is 

 merciful to his beast," finds his humanity a good pay- 

 ing investment. I doubt that the rule would fail, 

 even in Texas ; but I am contemplating civilized hus- 

 bandry, not the rude conditions of tropical semi-bar- 

 barism. If only by means of stakes and straw, give 

 cattle a chance to keep dry and warm when they 

 must otherwise shiver through a rainy, windy day 

 and night on the cold, wet' ground, and I 'am sure 

 they will pay for it. 



In confining a herd of cattle to such narrow limits, 

 I do not intend that they shall be stinted to what 

 grows there. On the contrary, I expect them to be 

 fed on Winter Rye, on Cut Grass, on Sowed Corn, 

 Sorghum, Stalks, Roots, etc., etc., as each shall be in 

 season. "With a good mower, it is a light hour's work 

 before breakfast to cut and cart to a dozen or twenty 

 head as much grass or corn as they will eat during the 

 day. But let that point stand over for the present. 



