158 AGRICULTURi: OX THE RIIIXE. 



until the stubble-turnips are fit. In winter cut straw is 

 mixed with the turnips, and warm feeding begins. In 

 the morning a mash of chaff, rape leaves, pea-pods, or 

 cat straw, with bruised turnips, potatoes, or oilcake, 

 boiled up together. Then barley or wheat straw follows 

 this meal, which is repeated at noon and in the evening. 

 In the middle of the day clover or meadow hay is occa- 

 sionally given to the cattle. 



" In larger farms where 10 or 15 cows arc kept this 

 kind of mash is given only twice a day. The poor 

 farmer is obliged to be more economical, and must occa- 

 sionally try, by the choice of his ingredients, to make 

 good the quantity that he cannot bring together. Even 

 in summer he prepares a soup of this kind for his beasts, 

 but then adds clover, thistles, convolvulus bind, and other 

 weeds, to the mixture. A portion of oilcake is added 

 while it is hot. 



" Turnips carefully preserved, mangel wurzel, turnip- 

 cabbage, potatoes, and Swedes play their part in the spring 

 and winter fodder. But this i)rovision is not at the com- 

 mand of all that keep cows, and the industrious skill of 

 many often degenerates into actual robbery. In summer 

 many a cow is kept sleek on purloined goods, but in 

 winter, when such are not accessible, the animal pays the 

 penalty ; as its master has nothing but straw to give, and 

 that in such wretched portions that half the next summer 

 is spent before it recovers its strength. 



'' This brings me to a subject that I never lose an op- 

 portunity of noticing, for when evil habits accompany a 

 bad system it becomes a sin to keep silence. The fol- 

 lowing is the opinion of a man of weight in the Moselle 

 district : ' The pasturage of cattle is not common with 



