ECONOMY OF FARMING. 10| 



3. now GREAT MUST BE THE NUMBER OF CATTLE ON A FARM TO AID FN THE PRODUC- 

 TION OF MANURE ? 



1. In every farm-husbandry (Acker-wirthschaft) beasts are necessary 

 for labor ; and because the manure which these yield, is not sufficient to 

 supply the necessity of the field, we have also so many other beasts — 

 cattle kept for manure, &c. (Nutsvieh) — in order thus to supply the defi- 

 ciency of manure. 



2. How much manure each head of working-cattle will yield, must, 

 therefore, first be sought, before we can proceed to the answer of the second 

 question : How much one head of cattle, kept for manure, will give, and 

 how many of such cattle must be kept ? 



S. But because cattle, kept for labor and various other uses, are large 

 or small, well or ill-fed, either constantly foddered in the stall or pastured, 

 sometimes a greater, sometimes a smaller part of the year ; and because 

 sometimes they are littered profusely, and sometimes only sparingly, and 

 the manure is suffered more or less to rot before it is brought into the 

 field ; therefore the weight of manure, which one head of cattle of the 

 same kind yields in the farm, varies according to the difference of these 

 circumstances. 



To the different circumstances above mentioned must it be ascribed, that the beasts 

 yield sometimes more, sometimes less manure, and that even in the same farm, of the 

 same number of beasts, not always an equal weight of manure is obtained. Mayer, 

 in his Estimates tor Farms, reckons that one cow, — which weighs live-weight 350 lbs., 

 and is pastured 6 months, during which time she is only every night brought to the 

 stall, and for 6 months in the winter is fed and littered daily with 10^ lbs. of 

 strav/ and 5^: lbs. of hay, — will yield 5| 4spanned (or 2 yoked) cardoads, at 1746 lbs., 

 or 10.039 lbs. of manure. If the cow weighs 525 lbs. live-weight and is supplied in 

 the winter w^ith IO5 lbs. of straw and 13^ lbs. of hay, she will give 7.39 cartloads, or 

 13,002 lbs. of manure; and if she weighs 700 lbs. live-weight, Hnd for winter-fodder 

 has 14.8 lbs. of straw and 13^ lbs, of hay, she will yield 8.8 cartloads = 15,364 lbs. 

 of manure. 



Working-oxen give, in the same circumstances, less manure, as, on account of 

 labor in the field, they are absent from the stall. 



Sheep usually pasture the greatest part of the year; they are often scarcely more 

 tiian 3—4 months in the stall. According to this time, according to their size, fodder, 

 and litter, we reckon sometimes more, sometimes less manure. Hube found that one 

 sheep in 150 days of winter, gave 12^ Rhenish cubic feet (about the same Enghsh)of 

 manure. Mayer reckons for one sheep daily, 3-1 lbs. of manure ; according to him 

 one sheep produces in 135 days of winter fodder, 472,5 lbs. of manure. 



With swine, the quantity of manure is given as variously ; sometimes it is thought 

 that one single yoked cartload, sometimes two, may be obtained from one animal. 



I had on my farm. 3 horses, 12 — 15 cows, 3 — 5 heifers, 3 sows, with their progeny. 

 If I reckon a horse equal to a cow, as respects the production of manure, the young 

 cattle, according to the need of fodder, and 5 one-year swine, equal to one cow, 1 

 have thus given tlie proportion of the animals. One cow on an average weighs 700 

 to 800 lbs. hve weight. They were always foddered in the stalls, and only go on the 

 meadows and clover-fields to feed on the after-crop of grass, from the 15th of Sep- 

 tember to the end of October, at which time also they are every morning, noon, and 

 evening brought a while to the stalls. They were well but only moderately littered. 

 Of these beasts I had in the course of years by no means an equal yearly amount of 

 manure from a head ; because they were not always equally littered, and because 

 the people, one year when there was a surplus of clover, foddered them very abun- 

 dantly, and in dry years practised more economy. I had of one cow. or of cattle re- 

 duced thus, in the lowest case 12, in the best 14 two-yoked cardoads of half-rotted 

 manure; each cartload reckoned at 12 cwt., therefore from 144 to 188 cwt. a year. 



4. Because the amount of the weight of manure which one head of cattle 

 yields, varies according to the difference of these circumstances ; so in 



