EXPERIMENTAL FARMING. 347 



cows upon a farinaceous gniel combined with straw. Ought 

 not all their farinaceous food to be made into a gruel, in order 

 to render it more productive of milk by assimilating it to the 

 nature of green, succulent food ? The supposition is that food 

 in a dry state tends to increase the fat of the animal, while the 

 same food coagulated with water, tends rather to increase the 

 quantity of milk. Is there no plant, without the disagreeable 

 properties of the cabbage, that might be preserved in a green 

 state during the winter, to supply the cow with succulent food 

 at this season? Will more milk be produced by green, succu- 

 lent food, combined with hay, than by the same hay combined 

 with thin, coagulated meal porridge or gruel? 



Is it expedient to employ cows for any sort of labor ? If 

 they are fed in their stalls and not sent to pasture, would not a 

 certain amount of labor be useful to them ? What is the effect 

 of labor upon tlie quality and the quantity of milk produced by 

 the individual subjected to it ? If the common labors of oxen 

 are too severe for a cow, might she not be used in an easy tread- 

 mill, to cut her own fodder, to shell corn, or even to churn her 

 own milk. These questions might be indefinitely multiplied, but 

 those already offered are sufficient for suggestion. In this place 

 we might also speak of the importance of ascertaining the com- 

 parative value of the cow and the goat, for supplying private 

 families with milk. 



9. Not inferior in importance to any of the subjects already 

 mentioned, is an inquiry into the capability of the soil. What 

 amount of any description of produce may an acre, when raised 

 to its maximum of fertility, be made to yield ? And how far is 

 it for the interest of a farmer to confine his labor and attention 

 to a small number of acres ? The less ground in a farm of any 

 given extent is under tillage, the more remains to grow up to 

 wood, or to be devoted to pasture. If a farmer has been accus- 

 tomed to raise upon twenty acres of land, a certain quantity of 

 produce of different kinds, by the labor of three men, and the 

 same quantity of produce, by another system of tillage, could 

 be raised upon ten acres of the same land, would the labor of 

 the same or a smaller number of men be required to effect it ? 



Admitting that a saving of labor could be made by adopting 

 the concentrated system of tillage, it still remains undetermined 

 whether the ten acres, mentioned above, would require the same 



