Agriculture is the most Healthy Jind Honorable, as it is the most Natural and-Useful pursuit of Man, 



\^0L. XII. 



ROCHESTER, N. Y.— FEBRUARY, 1851. 



NO. 2. 



ON FATTENING DOMESTIC ANIMALS. 



In an admirable lecture before the Society of Arts, 

 Mr. Mechi, of England, says : " I believe it is the 

 great quantity of stock kept that enables the Lothian 

 farmer to compete at so great a distance with the 

 south-country farmer ; and 1 believe it is the still 

 greater quantity of stock kept by Mr. McCulloch, 

 of Auchness, that enabled him to surpass the Lothian 

 farmers. Mr. Lawes has shown most indisputably, 

 in his admirable papers in the Royal Agricultural 

 Society's Journals, that we can produce manure 

 cheaper and better by feeding stock than by pur- 

 chasing guano." 



The economical production of beef, pork, and mut- 

 ton, and thereby securing a large increase of manure, 

 is an object of the first importance on every well 

 managed farm. A great many cultivators in this 

 country have yet to learn that it is quite as easy to 

 consume and finally exhaust the fertilizing elements 

 in the subsoil, by deep tillage and selling all the 

 crops, as it is to impoverish the surface soil by shal- 

 low plowing and sending the cream of the land to 

 distant markets. Both practices are part and parcel 

 of the same unwise system of agriculture. Each 

 cubic foot of the reader's soil will weigh 100 pounds 

 on an average — some more, some less — exclusive of 

 water or moisture. If it contains one part in 1600 

 of potash, it is better in that regard than the average 

 of land twenty-five years in cultivation. As there 

 are 1600 ounces in 100 pounds, of course a fair soil 

 contains but an ounce of potash in a cubic foot ; and 

 of this not over a dram, or the eightli of an ounce, is 

 available for any one crop, or perhaps for any five, 

 owing to the circumstance that seven-eighths of this 

 alkali exists in the same condition in the earth that 

 potash, soda, and lime occupy in window-glass, i. e., 

 it exists in the shape of an insoluble silicate of pot- 

 ash. Now, it matters not what food is fed to ani- 

 mals, very little of the potash, and less of the soluble 

 silica taken out of the soil in such food, remains in 

 the system. These, and other earthy elements of 

 crops, appear in the droppings or excretae, and can 

 be restored to the ground whence they were extracted. 

 But if a dram of potash is sent to market in hay, po- 

 tatoes, grain, or other products, from each cubic foot 

 of soil, or if it be wasted at home, how is the farmer 

 to replace that quantity of alkali in every cubic foot 

 of his impoverished fields ? Very few of our readers 

 have any just appreciation of the intrinsic value of 

 the raw material of human food and raiment. 



Mr. Mechi says that a million tons of oil-cake are 

 imported into England every year ; and in a recent 

 debate in Parliament, on the question of allowing 

 the out-going tenant a fair compensation for unex- 

 pended manure applied to land, it was decided by a 

 vote of the House, that the manure made from a ton 

 of oil-cake is worth half the cost of the cake. A 

 motion to regard the manure made by grau' at half 

 the cost of the grain, was first carried, then re-con- 

 sidered and lost. We should have voted in the 

 affirmative on both of the above questions — denying 

 the right of any tenant or landlord to remove more 

 of the earthy elements of bread and meat from the 

 soil than he applied to it. The natural fruitfulness 

 of the earth, whoUher the estate be entailed or not, 

 belongs to no one generation exclusively ; therefore, 

 to rob the earth of its phosphorus, potash, magnesia, 

 soda, and chlorine, is an obvious wrong which can 

 be justified only on the ground of an immediate and 

 pressing necessity. 



It is now the great business of American canals, 

 railroads, river, lake, and foreign commerce, to con- 

 vey to distant markets tlie raw material of cotton,, 

 grain, and provisions, drawn from one hundred million 

 acres of virgin soil. When our turn comes to seek 

 a million tons of oil-cake worth $15 a ton for manure, 

 where shall we find it ? So long as our subsoils 

 abound in the elements of wheat and cotton, deep 

 plowing, subsoiling, and growing clover, will bring 

 them to the surface ; but after the bone-earth and 

 potash are finally consumed in staples sent to the 

 sea-boarJ, or are dissolved by tillage and washed into 

 creeks, rivers, and lakes — ivhat then ? Then, and we 

 fear not before, we shall begin to fatten neat cattle, 

 hogs, and sheep, in a way to save every particle of 

 their droppings, by feeding them on open floors with 

 a tight basement. 



Speaking of this open-floor and cellar arrangement, 

 Mr. Mechi remarks : " Experience has taught me, 

 and will teach o' hers, in order to succeed in farming, 

 we must produce a much larger quantity of meat on 

 our farms than at present, and at less cost. In order 

 to do this, it becomes necessary to consume a large 

 portion of the straw of the farm, cut into chaff", and 

 cook it with meal and ground oil-cake. We are thus 

 deprived of the usual cattle-bedding, and must find a 

 substitute. Having practiced the system rather ex- 

 tensively, I will communicate to you the details ; 

 observing that although attended, as every system 

 must be, with certain disadvantages, the balance of 

 I benefit is sutficiently considerable to induce me to 



