MY FARM OF EDGEWOOD 



cows — particularly of milch animals, folded, or 

 stalled at night— will gradually and surely 

 diminish the fertilizing capital of such grazing 

 land. It is specially noticeable that the dete- 

 rioration under these conditions, is much more 

 marked upon hill lands than upon level mead- 

 ows.^ 



In the back country, such old pastures with 

 their brush and scattered stones, will feed sheep 

 profitably, and will grow better under the 

 cropping. But in the immediate neighborhood 

 of towns, where every barkeeper has his half 

 dozen dogs, and every Irish family their cur, 

 and every vagabond his canine associate, sheep 

 can only be kept at a serious risk of immola- 

 tion for the benefit of these worthies. Proper 

 legislation might interpose a bar, indeed, to 

 such sacrifice of agricultural interests, — if leg- 

 islation were not so largely in the hands of 

 dog-fanciers. 



The sheep are not the only sufferers. 



Shall the hill be ploughed? It is not an 

 easy task to lay a good furrow along a slope 

 of forty-five degrees, with its seams of old 

 wintry torrents, its occasional boulders, and 



^This is perhaps more apparent than real, from the 

 fact that upon level lands the droppmgs are more evenly 

 distributed. 



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