No. 10. 



Mode of Stock-Farming. — Fermented Manure. 



317 



For the Farmers' Cabinet. 

 Profitable Mode of Stoclc-Farming. 



Mr. Editor, — I tliink we plough and sow 

 too much. The life of the iariner need not 

 be that of incessant toil and labour, and I 

 mean to try whether 1 cannot hit off a plan 

 of making my cattle work for me, and take a 

 great portion of my crops to market in the 

 shape of beef— not "of butter and cheese, and 

 veal, twice a week — that is making toil of 

 pleasure. 



What I intend to do is this : I will pur- 

 chase a lot of two year old heifers this spring, 

 and turn them on my upper pastures, where 

 there is plenty of shade and water, and put 

 with them a pure-bred short-horn bull. They 

 will be brought into the straw yard in the 

 winter, where they will be fed with roots and 

 cut-straw, and other fodder, and be returned 

 to the pasture in the spring, with calves by 

 their sides: there they will remain until Au- 

 gust, when I shall wean the calves, putting 

 both cows and calves on the best keep. Dur- 

 ing the winter the cows will be fed fat with 

 roots, hay, and cob and corn meal, and sold 

 to the butcher in the spring. The calves 

 will be fully fed both summer and winter, and 

 at two years old sold fat to the butcher, un- 

 less persons would prefer to give me an extra 

 price for some of the handt^omest heifers for 

 stock ; not contemplating, however, reserving 

 any of them for my own use under any cir- 

 cumstances, but purchasing good-looking heif- 

 ers at two years old from drovers, to turn to 

 my short-horn bull ; and this I intend to do 

 every year, thus having always on hand ani- 

 mals of different ages to form a succession of 

 fatting stock. 



This plan will, I think, be profitable, and 

 will relieve me of much of the laborious du- 

 ties of tillage: the grazing of my pastures is 

 not costly, and the foddering in winter will 

 give me the means of dressing them and my 

 meadows with a top covering in the spring, 

 from which I expect to reap great advantage. 

 I calculate that the half-bred Durham calf, 

 when weaned, will be worth full as much 

 money as the cost of the keep of the cow — 

 sometimes, perhaps, as much as the cow her- 

 self; and there might be calculated from 30 

 to 40 dollars left for her winter feeding, be- 

 sides the saving of labour in milking, dairy- 

 ing, and suckling the calves by hand. I may 

 add, I never contemplate keeping any of tiie 

 cows over the winter feeding, but selling all 

 off, to make room for the next year's stock: 

 thus, during the summer I shall be relieved 

 from the incessant labours of the dairy, and 

 be enabled to turn all my attention to the 

 preparation of crops for the coming winter; 

 which will, I am sure, be a blessed change 

 from that system which I have been pursuing 



for the last years, carrying my butter and 

 veal to market in the hottest and the coldest 

 weather — a distance of 19 miles — and spend- 

 ing full a third part of my life, either by night 

 or day, on the road to and from market — a 

 course of slavery and hardship which no profit 

 can repay, and which I mean henceforth and 

 for evermore to eschew. James Neil. 



Chester County. 



For the Farmers' Cabinet. 

 Fermented Manure. 



Mr. Editor, — I lay it down as an axiom, 

 " that need not be controverted," 1st. That 

 no animal or vegetable matter can, properly 

 speaking, operate as manure to vegetable 

 life, until after fermentation. 2d. That no 

 animal or vegetable substance can, with im- 

 punity, be taken into circulation by living 

 plants after putrid fermentation has taken 

 place. Tb its destructive properties is to be 

 attributed the death of the orchard of cherry- 

 trees in tent, as mentioned in a late num- 

 ber of thi Cabinet, — the large quantity of 

 stable mmure which had been deposited 

 in the tr«nch, at a depth which prevented 

 the escapi of the deleterious gases on fer- 

 mentation] became in consequence ^y/riW; 

 and when fie roots of these trees had reached 

 and penetMed this substance, and had taken 

 up the poipn into circulation, death was the 

 immediatelconsequence. 



I once (krried abroad a large quantity of 

 stable manlre that had been long lying in a 

 watery hol|, until it had become quite putrid ; 

 and althouti it was spread as a top dressing 

 on pastureland, but little benefit was ever 

 known to aise from the application. A friend 

 who keeps large livery stable adjoining hia 

 land, dug alcistern to receive the drainage 

 of his yard, n which there is always a large 

 accumulation of manure, and kept a cart and 

 cask to cart? it abroad on his pasture and 

 meadow lanl; but he found no benefit from 

 it when it wis allowed to remain in the cis- 

 tern until puiid fermentation had taken place, 

 and the liquil matter had begun to smell dis- 

 gustingly, asle termed it. Another person, 

 aware of the ircumstance, has adopted a dif- 

 ferent mode tl very great advantage: at the 

 emptying of ie cistern, he deposits in it a 

 quantity of tn finest mould he can obtain, 

 and as soon s it is well saturated with the 

 drainings of Be yard, other mould is added 

 periodically, ukil the cistern is full ; it is then 

 removed to soie dry spot, and made into a 

 neat heap, and after turning it up to induce 

 a regular fernintation, it is carried as a top 

 dressing to hii meadows, and especially on 

 clover, in the cring, where the effect is ab- 

 solutely incalcjable. P. G. 

 Darby, April 16,B41. 



