30 



Green and Root Crops for Soiling. 



VOL.V. 



ought it not to be our object to make the most 

 and speediest profit from them possible 1 It 

 seems the strangest commendation of any 

 species of cattle to say, how well they would 

 endure to be starved, and how few pei- centum 

 would die under the operation ; it would be 

 a much greater recommendation, that they 

 were well shaped, and would stand under a 

 considerable burden of meat. All I would 

 require in point of hardiness of any kind of 

 stock, would be that they would thrive during 

 winter with good food, and under good shel- 

 ter; and the confinement of cattle to com- 

 fortable quarters in the homestall during win- 

 ter, is at length generally allowed to be a good 

 practice, by our ablest cultivators, and yet it 

 would appear, strange to say, even these make 

 an exception to the housing of sheep at that 

 season, on the ground that such has not been 

 the custom ! but a parity of reasoning, from 

 the case of other animals, and of all animal 

 nature, indeed, ought here to be our rule, and 

 rational theory is ever a safe guide to expe- 

 rience. Now, how came men to be so out of 

 their wits, as to doubt the propriety and the 

 profit of sheltering sheep, as well as other 

 animals, from the horrors of winter, unless 

 they have, from habit, forgotten to inquire 

 into the numerous instances of that success- 

 ful practice at home and abroad 1 There is, 

 to be sure, a certain country where numbers 

 of men are annually frozen to death with cold 

 in thin clothing, by custom — that so few per- 

 ish and so many escape, is an illustrious proof 

 of their hardiness and bravery, as well as 

 thickness of skull and hardness of heart in 

 their proprietors. 



But it ever excites a smile in me, to listen 

 to the plausible theory of your true practical 

 folks — " Oh ! men will always follow that 

 which they find most for their interest, and 

 of which, surely, they themselves must be 

 admitted to be the most sufficient judges, 

 after so many years of experience too." Ps^ow, 

 let us see how this aphorism works — a farmer 

 has a few acres of elegant meadow, and is 

 short of keep — now, what does he do ? why, 

 he turns his cattle into the high grass, where, 

 after gorging themselves, they proceed to 

 trample under foot this precious treasure, 

 with all possible expedition, rendering very 

 much of it perfectly useless with their excre- 

 ments; they fare sumptuously for the first 

 wetek or two, after which their keep, with 

 their condition, declines, till at the last push, 

 like spendthrifts, they find themselves, and 

 their owner finds them in actual want. Now, 

 had the good man, knowing the shortness of 

 his supply, thought proper to take the grass 

 to the cattle, instead of the cattle to the grass, 

 he might have obviated every difficulty ; his 

 herbage would have gone thrice as far, his 

 cattle in the meanwhile, being safely shel- 



tered at home from heat and flies, and the 

 whole of their dung preserved, which is by 

 no means the case when dropped at random. 

 Now is it not strange, that in a country where 

 cattle provision is of so much consequence, 

 that this moon-blind custom is so prevalent ? 



The advantages of the summer-fold are 

 truly great, and capable of being extended 

 almost beyond calculation ; our lavish expen- 

 diture in the summer season, by the barba- 

 rous method of suflfering cattle to tread half 

 the crops of grass under foot, and destroy so 

 large a portion of their most nutritious food, 

 is one great cause of our winter distress for 

 that prime article, good hay, which forms so 

 large a proportion of our dependence during 

 that trying season." 



The system of summer soiling cattle hag 

 been objected to, by a writer in the memoirs 

 of the Pennsylvania Agricultural Society, 

 who gives as his reason, the low price of 

 land and the high price of labour in this 

 country ; but, as a writer has since very pro- 

 perly observed, now that the first has risen 

 in many cases to five times its former value, 

 and the latter has diminished nearly in pro- 

 portion, it is believed that if it were now 

 taken up as a system, and followed out with 

 judgment, it would be found a very profitable 

 mode of husbandry. But the system here 

 advocated is far difi^erent from that which has 

 been practised under the head of summer 

 soiling, which was merely to cut the grass 

 of the meadows and carry it to the cattle, to 

 be consumed by them in the stalls ; to this 

 mode of soiling I am decidedly opposed, for 

 it is about as opposite to that which 1 propose 

 as can well be imagined, as it fills the mea- 

 dows full of weeds, and the cattle are com- 

 pelled to feed all the crop, without the power , 

 of selecting or refusing those plants which 

 are often found to be injurious to their health ; 

 and these are not the only serious objections 

 to the practice : no, it is mtended to confine 

 the system altogether to green and root crops, 

 raised on arable land, consisting, in the first 

 place, of a mixture of spring tares and oats, 

 sown on a manured soil as early as possible 

 in the spring, a full supply of them being 

 raised by periodical sowings until late in the 

 autumn, the last sowing taking place on the 

 removal of the earliest crop of rye, the stub- 

 ble of which should be manured and turned 

 down without the loss of a single day after 

 carrying the crop — this for the summer soil- 

 ing crops, the earliest sowing of which 

 should be prepared for by an autumnal plough- 

 ing. Should it be found, however, on expe- 

 riment that the winter variety of the tare 

 will bear the frosts of this country, the first 

 sowing of these will take place in Septem- 

 ber, with the expectation of an earlier crop 

 by two weeks in the spring, than from the 



