TAKING REINS IN HAND 



amount of labor involved, always encourage 

 it. But I am of opinion that no light land will 

 warrant this strain, except where manures 

 from outside sources are easily available, and 

 are applied with a generous hand. Such, for 

 instance, is the immediate neighborhood of the 

 sea-shore, where fish and rockweed are access- 

 ible ; or, what amounts to the same thing, such 

 disposition of the land as admits of thorough 

 irrigation. In my case, both these were want- 

 ing. I must depend for manurial resources 

 upon the consumption of the grasses at home. 



And this suggests dairying: dairying in its 

 ordinary sense, indeed, as implying butter and 

 cheese-making, involves grazing; and can be 

 most profitably conducted on natural grass 

 lands, and at a large distance from market, 

 since the transport of these commodities is 

 easy. But there remains another branch of 

 dairying — milk supply — which demands near- 

 ness to market, which is even more profitable, 

 and which does not involve necessarily a large 

 reach of grazing land : the most successful milk 

 dairies in this country, as in Great Britain, 

 being now conducted upon the soiling prin- 

 ciple — that is, the supply of green food to the 

 cows, in their enclosures or stalls. 



What plan then could be better than this? 



79 



