PASTURES AFFECTED BY FEEDING. 161 



they produce when well fed. Some of the best En 

 glish farmers are accustomed to consider one load of 

 manure from their fattening stock, equal to at least 

 two, and sometimes to three loads, from the sheds and 

 yards where their young stock is kept. This supe- 

 riority is not a matter of opinion only, but the result 

 of experience. 



SECTION V„ ON THE EFFECT OF FEEDING UPON PASTURES. 



There is one more point to be noticed, in connec- 

 tion with the difference in the portions of food re- 

 tained by animals fed at various stages of growth, 

 and for different purposes. This is relative to the 

 different effect produced by them upon pastures. 



Where milch cows, or young stock generally, are 

 fed constantly upon a pasture, or meadow, .there is 

 a rapid deterioration, particularly as to the inor- 

 ganic materials of the soil. The milch cow carries 

 away phosphates, and other valuable mineral ingre- 

 dients, beside nitrogenous bodies, in her milk; the 

 young animal does the same, in its augmented oody 

 and bones. Their manure, even if all left upon the 

 soil, does not restore more than a small part of that 

 which they take away; and the richest pasture will, 

 after a time, begin to show signs of exhaustion. 



The case of a pasture upon which full grown ani- 

 mals are fattened, is quite different. Here all of the 

 phosphates, etc. which are not required for the body, 

 are restored to the soil; and such a pasture may hold 

 out, with little decrease of fertility, for a very long 

 period. If the animals are at the same time, as is 

 usual, fed with rich food from sources foreign to the 

 farm, then the pasture may even improve under such 

 a system of pasturing; the inorganic substances in 

 the soil may actually be increased, rather than dimi- 

 nished, if the food eaten abounds in them. In some 

 U* 



