No. 1. 



Green and Root Crops for Soiling. 



29 



lie as equally as possible, nor ought lime or 

 ashds to come in immediate contact with 

 dung, but with earth or vegetables ; and every 

 practical man knows when to turn it over 

 and divide and break the clods and adhesions. 

 — Lawrance. 



To the Editor of the Farmers' Cabinet. 

 On Green and Root Crops for Soiling. 



Permit me, Mr. Editor, to impress upon 

 your numerous readers the vital importance 

 of attending more to the growth of green and 

 root crops, for the support of stock, than is 

 customary, even amongst the best and most 

 intelligent class of husbandmen. The beset- 

 ting sin of our agriculturists seems to be a 

 desire to raise crops of corn and grain, at any 

 sacrifice, and then to suffer the land to go to 

 grass for several years, with the view of 

 recruiting that strength, which has been ex- 

 pended in the production of those crops in 

 close succession, until no more can be screwed 

 out of it — thus putting it to rest, with its 

 bowels choked with dvery description of the 

 most exhausting trash that can be enume- 

 rated ! I am convinced, that if a judicious 

 mixture of grain and green crops were to be 

 substituted for the present exhausting course, 

 a gain to an incalculable extent might be 

 realized, and our lands be kept in the highest 

 condition, with much less labour and expense 

 than is now bestowed upon them, and a mine 

 of wealth, in the shape of mountains of ma- 

 nure, be secured on our own premises, with- 

 out the cost of purchase, and labour of trans- 

 portation. 



A most sensible writer observes, " Provision 

 for cattle, as has been sufficiently often re- 

 peated, is one of the first objects in hus- 

 bandry ; and the late improvements in this 

 department form, perhaps, the most striking 

 feature of superiority in the new, over the old 

 system. Although by this method of grazing 

 — so to term cattle-feeding in general — a con- 

 siderable portion of the farm is necessarily 

 withdrawn from the culture of bread-corn, 

 yet both reason and experience demonstrate 

 that the crops of grain will be infinitely hea- 

 vier than if the whole, or the too great por- 

 tion allotted to that purpose by the old sys- 

 tem, were so employed ; and that, instead of 

 the land being exhausted as of old, it may 

 thus be maintained in perpetual vigour. 

 Grantino' the truth, that constant turning and 

 pulverizing the soil and exposing every pos- 

 sible superficies of it to atmospheric influ- 

 ence, will render unnecessary the introduc- 

 tion of such large quantities of stable-yard, 

 and other heavy manures, yet, in a roast beef 

 country like ours, vast herds of cattle must 

 be kept, and be winter as well as summer-fed, 

 which can alone be effected, under our pre- 



sent circumstances, by aid of the crops in 

 question. 



It is somewhat strange, that, at so late a 

 period, such groundless opinions should pre- 

 vail, or that men should be so grossly igno- 

 rant of their nearest concerns; yet what 

 numbers of farmers there are, who go on to 

 the end of their lives, driving and impover- 

 ishing several hundred acres of land, without 

 keeping cattle enough to manure properly a 

 tenth part of their farms : ask these men for 

 an explanation of conduct so extraordinary, 

 and they will tell you very gravely, and in 

 truth, with equal sufficiency, that indeed they 

 should like well enough to keep more live- 

 stock, but that theirs is an arable, and not a 

 grazing farm, which circumstance renders 

 the thing impossible. Tliis is the reasoning 

 which generally and currently passes under 

 the respectable name of experience, although 

 it affords nothing of impartial proof; for it is 

 a fully established truth, that an arable farm 

 will maintain much greater stocks of cattle 

 than such as is commonly styled a grazing 

 farm, granting there is a sufficient homestall ; 

 and that the green and root crops will go 

 much farther for that purpose than the natu- 

 ral grasses — it is, in fact, arrant nonsense to 

 talk of a want of herbage upon an arable 

 farm ; a defect which is so easily and so 

 speedily supplied. And there is a kindred 

 error prevalent amongst another and some- 

 what superior description of cultivators; 

 these will keep and summer-fat a consider- 

 able quantity of stock, but they either neg- 

 lect, or seem ignorant, how to provide winter 

 provision of sufficient quantity and quality 

 for their support: the evil consequence of 

 this error is, that they are usually obliged to 

 part with a considerable quantity of stock 

 half fat, at great disadvantage, on the aj>- 

 proach of winter, while many of those which 

 they retain are fed at an expense too great, 

 whilst the greater number are left to encoun- 

 ter hunger, wet, and cold, and to lose as much 

 per head during the winter months, as they 

 are likely to profit in those of the following 

 summer; while this plan of subjecting cattle 

 to loss, or even to remain stationary during 

 the winter, is a great public and private dis- 

 advantage, partaking nothing at all of mis- 

 fortune, but wholly of error and neglect. 

 The business o? fattening may, and ought to 

 proceed equally in winter as in summer; and 

 in the store-feeding of cattle, the practice of 

 keeping them hard, as we phrase it — that is, 

 exposing them half-fed, or half-famished, to 

 all the rage and inclemency of the elements, 

 is cruel and absurd in the extreme: these 

 scapegoats pay nothing, but cattle comforta- 

 bly wintered and kept in good store condition, 

 would pay handsomely, particularly by requir- 

 ing afterwards much less time to fatten ; and 



