742 



FAUMERS' REGISTER 



raode of gratifying one of the roost, amiable of 

 human passions, 



'J'he expanse of our territory, geneially, is now 

 in a state so Tar from being able to improve under 

 the double taxation ol' tillage and grazing, as to 

 require a revolution of our habits to improve under 

 eitlier; and the time iias come, when it is equally 

 necessary to discover some mode of raising meat 

 as well as bread, wiihout impoverisliing our lands. 

 It is easy by a good system so wonderliilly to 

 alier the case, as to make stocks profitable simply 

 fi-om ilicir manure, exclusive of the labor, meal, 

 tallow, leather, milk and butter they yield ; and to 

 draw iiom them not only the cntue means for 

 tlieir own eupport, liut a surplus lor enriching the 

 soil. The mode of doing this lias been lieretofbre 

 explained, but in order to combine with it the 

 subject now under consiJeration, with more per- 

 spicuity, I will take up and consider separately, 

 the mode of managing each species of our do- 

 mestic animals, usually coniprised by the term 

 "stock," upon a tillage Ikrm vviiich requires the 

 nurture of inclosing. 



The working animals constitute a species of 

 stock comprising horses, mules and oxen. The 

 two former ought to inhabit a lot having a stable 

 and stream, and to be excluded wholly from graz- 

 ing. For two months of the year, clover cut 

 daily, and exposed to six hours' sun, to prevent 

 the animal from being hoven, should be their hay. 

 It will add to their health at the season it comes 

 in. After it fails, the best fodder or hay, preserv- 

 ed for the hottest season, succeeds it. Corn stalks 

 serve them from the first of November, whilst 

 they last, and are succeeded by the inferior tops, 

 blades or hay. By littering the stables and yards 

 well in winter, they will make manure sufficing 

 to enrich more land than will produce their corn; 

 as this enrichment is not exhausted by one crop ; 

 and as clover, proper cultivation, and inclosing 

 will preserve and farther improve the land, the 

 working stock, exclusive of its labor, subscribes 

 largely'^to the renovation of the soil instead of its 

 impoverishment by pasturing. The considerations 

 of saving the labor of colleciing the working ani- 

 mals from pastures, and avoiiTing the loss of the 

 morning, so material in a warm climate, are infe- 

 rior, bu" additional recommendations of the same 

 system, 



' The oxen in &ummer should be penned and fed 

 separately from the other cattle, and in winter the 

 same separation should take place, with a more 

 comfortable cover. They will furnish the saiiie 

 supply oi" manure as the horses and mules in vviri- 

 ter, and more in summer from the removal of their 

 pen, calculated to stand not beyond ten days. 

 Whilst not at vvorkj they may be pastured with 

 the other cattle. 



The horned cattle are happily able to encounter 

 the hardships inflicted on them by the impover- 

 ishment of our country. These will be gradually 

 decreased by enriching it. Their food for half the 

 year consists of the coarse offal of bread grain in 

 much of the greater portion of the United States, 

 and a system which will increase such crops, will 

 increase their food during that season of the year, 

 when they suffer most, and perish in great num- 

 bers, besides affording them a chance from its 

 greater plenty, of participating more copiously of 

 the grain itself. Such an increase of staple crops 

 begets capital and releases labor, for draining im- 



provements; and speedily points at swamps and 

 marshes of a soil, capable in general of being 

 made one hundred fold more productive in grass, 

 than our exhausted fields. Meadows thus grow 

 out of the inclosing system, if that system in- 

 creases the staple crops, and are a retribution with 

 accumulating interesfs to the stock, lor the loss of 

 naked fields. This retribution extends to both tiill 

 and winter. Meadows should be cut for hay, and 

 grazed with horned cattle, alter the second crop 

 has arrived to its most luxuriant state. So far 

 from being deteriorated by it, they are improved, 

 produce cleaner and larger crops of hay, are 

 longer defended against the intrusion of weeds, 

 busiies and coarse grasses, and finally, when till- 

 age becomes necessary lijr cleansing them, their 

 state for receiving it will be belter, and the crop 

 enhanced. 



By the increased offal of increased crops, and by 

 the hay of these meadows, stocks vvili be better 

 provided for during the winter, than under the 

 unlimited grazing system ; to which add the graz- 

 ing of the afiermath of the meadows, and this 

 superior provision is extended to aljout eight 

 months of the year. BetVv'een three and lour 

 months of spring and summer, pasturage only 

 remains to be supplied. An abundant resource 

 lor this is one effect of unlimited grazing, and our 

 greatest agrarian calamity. Vast tracts of ex- 

 hausted country are every where turned out, or 

 left unenclosed, to recover what heart they can in 

 their own way ; and their progress in that effort 

 is accelerated by inclosing them as pasturage for 

 cattle alone, or at least excluding hogs. Such 

 fields presently produce shrubs and coarse grass, 

 and lands never cleared, may be inclosed with 

 them, as auxiliaries. Together, they will consti- 

 tute a pasture for cattle, far better in the spring 

 and summer, than that generally afforded by 

 arable lands, which in the maize country of the 

 United States are particularly scanty of crass 

 until towards the fall, and then the superior re- 

 source of the meadow grazing is provided by the 

 system of inclosing. 



It would be too alarming, to subjoin to these 

 reasonings (and probably by its strangeness might 

 destroy them all) the idea of manuring a spacious 

 highland meadow, as a farther auxiliary to the 

 inclosing system ; snd therefore it will be deferred 

 until crops are trebled by it. Eut it is indispensa- 

 bly necessary to point out in what way this system 

 is prepared to satisfy those cravings which cannot 

 be deferred. 



As crops increase in a warm and poor country, 

 no department will more suddenly experience an 

 improvement than that of the table. As to beefj 

 it is received from the aftermath of the meadow, 

 by the pumpkin, and Indian corn, the corn stalks 

 succeed the pumpkins, and it is finished in March 

 on corn and hay. In the interim the knife is at 

 work and the manure is accumulating. During 

 the moderate weather, after leaving the meadow, 

 for the pumpkins, the beeves are penned on suc- 

 cessive spots and not littered, the plough succeed- 

 ing the removal of the pen. When the s;ocks 

 come in they are placed in their stationary winter's 

 habitation, and copiously littered. And with pro- 

 per management, the manure thus raised over- 

 pays the expense of fattening them. The addi- 

 tional advantage of milk and butter is derived 

 from fattening for beef the old cows yielding milk, 



