USE or LINSEED. 107 



until I have completed two years' trial. Suffice it now, 

 however, to add, that I have sound grounds for preferring 

 the box-feeding system to every other mode, the food 

 being cheaper, the cattle thriving faster, and the manure 

 being made so much better, that we consider twelve loads 

 thereof equal to twenty loads from oil-cake-fed beasts, 

 whether tied up or otherwise." 



It is pleaded by its enthusiastic advocate, that the 

 system of feeding stock upon linseed is simple in practice, 

 powerful in effect, and applicable to every grade of 

 farmer ; and that it is more important, if possible, to the 

 breeder than to the grazier, if we may judge from the re- 

 marks of the duke of Buccleuch, at a meeting of the 

 Dumfries Agricultural Association ; and from the miser- 

 able spectacles that appear in our cattle-markets spec- 

 tacles at variance both with humanity and judicious 

 management. His grace animadverted upon the de- 

 teriorating effect of keeping cattle upon straw in winter, 

 and advised the adoption of some method that would, at 

 least, retain the condition acquired in the summer, and 

 improve the manure. Linseed meal boiled for a few 

 minutes, and ultimately incorporated with straw, will 

 achieve both objects. Eor instance, Mr. Partridge had 

 twenty-one score of ewes, to which a peck only was given 

 per day, at the cost of Is. 9d. 9 or a penny per score, in- 

 cluding the expense of crushing, boiling, &c. That so 

 small a quantity of linseed should be divided amongst 

 420 sheep, must of course appear paradoxical ; but the 

 following explanation will remove all doubt : a peck of 

 linseed reduced to fine meal is stirred into twenty gal- 

 lons of water ; in about ten minutes, the mucilage being 

 formed, a pailful is poured, by one person, upon two 

 bushels of cut hay thrown into a strong trough, while 

 another mixes it with a fork, and hastens the absorption 

 with a small rammer. The like quantity of chaff is next 

 added with the mucilage as before, till the copper is 

 empty. The mass being firmly pressed down, is after a 

 short time carried in sacks to the fold, where the sheep 

 will devour with avidity hay in this form which was 



