74 



We speak next of the winter keeping of our Stock. Though 

 tliere are numerous honorable exceptions, our cattle do little credit 

 to their owners ; and when spring arrives it often happens that our 

 cows, and 3K)ung stock especially, are lean, dirty, and hide-bound, 

 and indicate pretty strongly the neglect and hardness of their mas- 

 ters. In many cases, if the farmer can get them through the winter 

 alive upon salt or fresh meadow hay, he congratulates himself on 

 having performed his duty and saved his money. But it is a false 

 economy, and the farmer as well as his cattle arc sufferers by such 

 neglect and hard usage. We do not require of the farmer to give 

 much English hay to his cattle, excepting to his milch cows in the 

 spring, because it is too expensive a feed ; and it is in general the 

 principal article of produce upon which he depends for the payment 

 of his labor and the pecuniary wants of his family. His meadow 

 hay should be well cured and salted ; at least half a bushel of salt 

 to a load. His corn fodder, both top and bottom stalks, should be 

 cured and saved with as much care as his English hay. So too 

 with his barley, rye, and wheat straw. He should lay in a quantity 

 of salt hay if his situation admits of it. To these he should by all 

 means add a plentiful supply of vegetables ; mangold wurtzel, Swed- 

 ish turnips, carrots, or potatoes. The three former, when planted 

 on ridges formed by turning a back furrov^^ the manure being de- 

 posited under the ridge, being once thinned carefully and after- 

 wards cultivated by a plough or drill harrow, may be raised, taking 

 into tho account the cost of twenty-five bushels of seed potatoes to 

 an acre, at as little expense as potatoes; and with cultivation, which 

 will give 200 bushels of potatoes, you may ordinarily calculate upon 

 500 bushels of carrots, Swedish turnips, or mangold wurtzel. 



An acre of carrots yielding six hundred bushels, and nine hun- 

 dred have been obtained in this County, allowing to a horse throe 

 pecks per day, in which case he would require no grain and very 

 little hay, which might be coarse hay, would be equal to the keeping 

 of a horse for a term of two years ; but as horses are ordinarily kept 

 besides the grain which they require, a liorse to be kept in good 

 condition would need for a year more than four tons of good hay or 

 more than eight tons for two years ; now allowing one ton and one 

 quarter of hay to an acre, which may be considered as a fair aver- 

 age, the produce of an acre of carrots, as far as and while it can 

 be applied to the feeding of a horse, is equal to more than six acres 

 of land in hay. The manure made from succulent vegetables is 



