474 THE HOG. 



tized manure represented by the whole quantity of forage, were it 

 to be used immediately. To obtain results of any accuracy, how 

 ever, it were necessary to possess data both more numerous and 

 more precise than any we have at present. This perfection of co- 

 efficients must be viewed as an affair for the future ; agricultura 

 science has almost every thing to create. 



In estimating the quantity of manure from the forage consumed, 

 it has been supposed that there is no loss. With reference to the 

 stall or cow-house, a careful husbandman may approach this perfec- 

 tion, by doing almost the contrary of all that is usually done now-a- 

 days ; i. e. by taking every precaution against waste ; but it is obvi- 

 ous that in so far as the stable is concerned, there must always be a 

 considerable and inevitable loss ; all that falls upon • highways and 

 byways is irretrievably gone. It is, indeed, matter of ordinary cal- 

 culation that in consequence of their work out of doors, the horses 

 upon a farm do not afford more than about two thirds of the dung 

 which ought to be obtained from the provender consumed. Some 

 experiments made in the stables at Bechelbronn show that the loss 

 in this way may amount to one quarter of the whole amount of 

 dejections ; still, as the animals are for the major part engaged on 

 the land of the farm, it is obvious that what falls there is by no 

 means lost. To supply my reader with definite sums from a partic- 

 ular instance, upon which he may fix his mind, I shall state for his 

 information that in the course of 1840-41,* my stock at Bechelbronn, 

 consisting of sixteen head of cattle, eleven calves, twenty-seven 

 horses, and (?) hogs, consumed 333,579 lbs. or 148 tons, 18 cwts. 

 1 qr. 15 lbs. of forage, containing 6925 lbs. of azote, and produced 

 upon their original weight 20,821 lbs. of flesh, fat and milk, contain- 

 ing with the addition of a calculated quantity for loss from out of 

 door droppings, exhalation by the lungs, &c., 2631 lbs. of azote. 

 The forage and litter, from their contents in azote, ought to have 

 produced about 15,356 cwt. of moist farm-yard dung; they, however, 

 produced no more than 9522 cwt. ; and, in fact, we see that there 

 had been a consumption of azote by arrest within the bodies of the 

 stock, by exhalation from their lungs, and by loss, amounting to 2631 

 lbs. ; by an equivalent quantity of dung, therefore, had the absolute 

 produce necessarily been diminished. 



Thaer allows that articles of dry forage and litter double their 

 weight in becoming converted into dung. The statement which I 

 have just made agrees on the whole pretty well with this estimate. 

 In our cow-house ration, one half only is generally hay, the other 

 half consists of roots and tubers. The dry forage and litter conse- 

 quently amount to 4G60 cwt. which according to Thaer ought to 

 become changed into 9320 cwt. of dung, a number not very wide of 

 that to which we have come. Sinclair reckons the dung of the cow- 

 house at four times the weight of the litter, a view which neither 

 accords with Thaer's estimate nor with our experience. 



I think it altogether unnecessary to insist on the importance tt 



* Twelve months I presume.— Ekg. Ed. 



