506 , TRANSACTIONS OF THE 



as a field not fed off will yield far more and better grass for twelve 

 years than it will six if closely fed in the fall of the year; and if 

 your lands are soft, they are nearly ruined by poaching after the 

 first autumn rain, and as the teeth of neat cattle are excessively 

 dull, they very frequently draw up the bulbs of timothy grass, 

 and thus rapidly destroy the meadow. Cattle should never be 

 allowed to leave the barn yard premises at all, but particularly 

 in the fall, and horses are better off in the stables than open fields. 

 I once possessed a horse that was thirty years old, and he never, 

 from the time he was four yours old, ran upon pasture, and I 

 never found it possible to match him in carriage, health or action. 

 Food may be cut and carried to the yards in less time than the 

 stock can be driven home from the pastures; eight acres will 

 afford them food longer than forty acres depastured. They eat 

 their meal in twenty minutes, lie down, secrete milk and form 

 fat, and if our State would make laws for the benefit of the people 

 at large, instead of individuals, cattle would not be permitted to 

 run on the highways, and no fences would be required. Penn- 

 sylvania alone' would save by such an enactment 100,000,000 of 

 dollars, our State $54,000,000 per annum, and the other States 

 of our Union corresponding sums according to the density of their 

 population. The landscape of the country would be beautiful 

 to behold; there would be no abominable receptacles for snow 

 drifts, to delay our spring plowing, there would be four acres 

 saved out of every hundred, manure could be spread with ease 

 throughout the field, neighbors would be always friends instead 

 of enemies, injurious weeds would find no harbor for their seeds, 

 which are now protected by useless fences, and cannot be de- 

 stroyed; when I contemplate the quantity of these produced by 

 individual plants, I am almost constrained to curse the fences. 

 For example, a single May weed sheds, October 15, 46,000 seeds. 



Burdock, October 3, 25,000 do 



Ox-eye Daisy,.. Sept. 20, 16,000 do 



Red Poppy, October 21, 52,000 do 



Common Dock,.. ...Sept.25, 14,000 do 



Stinking Chamomile, Sept. 28, 4 1 ,000 do 



These are not all fertile, still a large percentage of them vege- 



