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nure, than keep an expensive and troublesome stock of meat cattle, 

 chiefly for the sake of their excrementitious matters. I do not speak 

 of animals kept for labor, working oxen, or those that are being 

 fattened, as they are fed on farinaceous food, such as ground corn, 

 oats, &c., all of which enrich the manure vastly, and much passes 

 through the system; besides, these animals remunerate. I speak 

 chiefly of cows, young heifers and steers. Many farmers keep this 

 class of animals expressly to enrich their farms; which are daily 

 becoming impoverished by this means. There is another enormous 

 outlay connected with this mode of farming, which might be dis- 

 pensed with, if cattle were not kept, and that is, inside fencing. 

 Hundreds, millions, are annually expended by farmers, on inside 

 fences, which are entirely unnecessary, except to keep cattle within 

 certain bounds, and if cattle are not kept, an outside fence only is 

 requisite. 



The necessary animals on a farm, such as horses, oxen, and milch 

 cows, should never run at large. For fourteen years my horses 

 have been stabled, winter or summer, and my usual practice is to soil 

 my cows. If I should state the advantages, they would surprise you 

 so much, that I prefer rather to advise you to try the experiment 

 and satisfy yourself. You will soon discover that five acres of well 

 cultivated land will keep ten cows, in fine condition, much longer 

 than twenty acres depastured ; that by judicious feeding, and proper 

 application of straw, leaves, and road-scrapings to the barn yard, 

 you will make enough manure to pay the expense of purchasing ten 

 new cows every year, turning off the old set to the butcher as beef. 

 You may laugh at the idea of converting cows, that have given you 

 from eight to twenty quarts of milk daily, each, throughout the year ; 

 nevertheless it can be done, for I have accomplished it. The reason 

 is very evident ; a cow depastured is walking twenty hours out of 

 twenty-four, generally speaking, to fill herself, and satisfy her epi- 

 curean appetite, and most of the food is required to sustain the wear 

 and tear of nature, consequently, little is left to form fat and secrete 

 milk ; whereas, inihe barn yard her food is brought to her three 

 times each day, and the order of things is reversed — she eats four 

 hours, sleeps and ruminat s twenty hours, takes on fat, forms bones 

 and muscles, secretes milk, &c. By skill, a combination of food can 

 be formed to produce almost any object — fat, milk, bone, flesh, &c. 



To form fat, no better food can be used than bran, as it contains 

 in every one hundred pounds from two to seven pounds of fat ; 

 wheat bran, made from the outer covering of wheat, contains two 

 pounds in the hundred pounds, and corn from the outer covering 



