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SOI 



405 



ally a great supply of food, the cat- 

 tle are eager after it. They have 

 great opportunity to select. They 

 feed quietly, and take only the most 

 nutritious arid palatable. After 

 this naonth, if the stall feeder will, 

 this equality will gradually cease, 

 and in his favour. The pasture 

 food almost always grows more or 

 less scarce, according to the par- 

 ticiiiar character of the season. 

 lVh(!reasby taking care to providt 

 a regular succession of succulent 

 crops, he who feeds his beasts in 

 stalls may keep the milk product 

 unaffected by the state of the sea- 

 son to the end of autumn. 



The attainment of manures. In 

 pasturing the summer manure is 

 almost wholl} lost. It falls upon 

 rocks, among bushes, in water 

 courses, on the sides of hills. It is 

 evaporated by the sun, it is wash- 

 ed away by the rain. Insects de- 

 stroy a part. The residuum, a dry 

 hard cake, lies sometimes a year 

 upon the ground ; often impediig 

 vegetation, and never enriched the 

 earth in any thing like the propor- 

 tion it would do, if it had been de 

 posited under cover and kept free 

 from the action of the sun, in appro- 

 priate and covered receptacles, to 

 be carted out annually in the pro- 

 per season, and ploughed at once 

 under the surface. 



Mr. Quincy gives the following 

 statement of his experience in soil- 

 ing. 



" My stock, consisting at an aver- 

 age of twenty cows, were kept in 

 their stalls through the whole year. 

 The practice was to feed them 

 about six times in a day, and to 

 permit them to range in a yard 



about eighty feet square, two hours 

 in the i'orenoun and two in the after- 

 noon. They were kept well lit- 

 tered and well curried. While 

 they were out of the siabie, the at- 

 tendant took that opportunity to 

 clean the stalls, and to supply fresh 

 litter. Diuing winter, they were 

 fed. as is usual, with salt nnd fresh 

 hay and vegetables. — Fronv June 

 to November, inclusive may be 

 considered, strictly speaking, as the 

 soiling season ; by which is under- 

 stood, that, in which they are fed 

 with green food in the house. As 

 this is the critical period, I shall be 

 minute in the account of my pre- 

 parations and proceedings. 



" In the autumn preceding I had 

 caused rye to be sown u^.o.-i an in- 

 verted sward, very thick, on about 

 three acres. Early in April i pre- 

 pared and sowed, in manner as 

 shall be stated afterwards, about 

 three acres and one quarter of land 

 with Indian corn in drills. 1 also 

 sowed about three acres of oats and 

 buck wheat broad cast, at the rate 

 of three bushels to the acre, about 

 the latter end of the month. The 

 whole quantity of land, I thus pre- 

 pared to be used in soiling in aid of 

 my grass, did but little exceed nine 

 acres Of these, that which 1 sow- 

 ed with rye turfted out so poorly, 

 that I never soiled from it more 

 than tive days^ so that in fact the 

 land thus prepared did, in efficien- 

 cy, but little exceed six acres. 



" About the first of June, cattle 

 in general were this season turned 

 out to pasture. On the 30th of 

 May, my farmer began to cut the 

 sides of the road leadmg to my 

 house from the highway and orch- 



