154 [Assembly 



600,000 miles of unnecessary fences might have been dispensed 

 with, and a proportionable quantity of valuable land covered by 

 them saved for agricultural purposes. Countless millions of weeds 

 that have found protection beside them and sown their seeds, would 

 have been destoyed by cultivation; and nameless sums of money, 

 expended for material and construction, might have been appropri- 

 ated to more beneficial purposes. The fact is, grass land intended 

 for meadows, never should be depastured, for the reason that cattle 

 during wet weather, poach the fields, destroy the fine grasses and 

 leave holes behind them where water lodges, stagnates, and thus in- 

 vites the growth of aquatic plants such as rushes, &c. It is a well 

 known fact, that the cultivated grasses receive from the earth and 

 atmosphere, during their growth, the oil, gluten and phosphates 

 necessary to form the whole animal economy of the beast feeding 

 upon them; they replace in his body portions which are daily re- 

 moved by excretion, and imperceptible perspiration; 40 ounces of 

 carbon are thrown off every 24 hours from a full grown ox, which 

 must be supplied in the form of gum, sugar and starch through the 

 medium of his vegetable diet. Therefore if you depasture your ani- 

 mals, you should manure the lands with such substances as are cal- 

 culated to enrich the grass that it may have the desired effect upon 

 them. 



The milch cow injures your pastures more than any other 

 stock, for the reason that she transforms all the valuable pro- 

 perties of the grass into fat, muscle, and milk, and therefore 

 makes but a poor return of cold, valueless manure to the soil. 

 Next, young cattle are of little if any benefit; as they form from 

 their food, muscles, bones, fat, blood, &c. Animals that have reach- 

 ed their full growth, formed their bones, muscles, &c., only take 

 from their food oily substances required to form fat, and return to 

 the soil all the other fertilizing constituents of the grass. Pastures 

 depastured by such animals, are constantly improved; though no 

 manure may be added artificially to them, the droppings will main- 

 tain the land in continued richness, from the daily loss of their car- 

 cases. Still the waste is immense, as these valuable substances fer- 

 ment, decay and pass into atmosphere by evolving their gases; and 

 comparatively speaking, but small portions remain to fertilize the 

 soil. If these animals were confined in the farm-yard, and grasses 

 from such pastures cut and carried to them, the manure would be 

 quadrupled in quantity and increased in quality, inasmuch as nearly 

 all the volatile and saline substances would be saved by consolida- 

 tion, with the assistance of charcoal-dust, and when required for 



