496 Transactions of tee American Institute. 



actual measurement. Seed sown September 10, one and a half bush- 

 els per acre ; manured with one barrel of bone meal and 300 pounds 

 horse shavings, costing $1.5© per 100 pounds. A crop of seeds of 

 turnip, parsnip and carrot had just been harvested from the land pre- 

 vious to sowing the rye, for which seeds a light dressing of barn-yard 

 manure and one barrel of bone was used ; soil a heavy red, high and 

 dry. It may with propriety be asked if we raise such crops every 

 year. By no means. The season was one of the very best; the 

 summer was cool and dry, which stiffened the straw and made the 

 berry plump; had the season been warm and wet the enormous 

 growth of straw (375 sheaves) would probably have lodged and ruined 

 the berry. It is our aim to use such manure as is best adapted to each 

 particular crop, always having in view the necessity of seeding to 

 grass after cropping two or three years ; for by no other means can 

 artificial fertilizers be used with much profit, except where plenty of 

 vegetable mold is in the soil. By any other course, you are killing 

 the goose that lays the golden egg. 



Twenty Cows on Twenty Ackes. 



A Bourbon county, Ky., correspondent — Experienced farmers say 

 that it requires three acres of blue-grass to keep a single bullock. 

 On this he will thrive from the 1st of May until the 1st of December, 

 save during two months, from the middle of July to the middle of 

 September, during which time he will put on but little flesh. The 

 corn grown upon another acre (say sixty or seventy-five bushels) will 

 keep him in good condition and improving from the 1st of December 

 to the 1st of May. Thus you will see, under our system, it requires 

 four acres of land, worth $100 per acre, to fatten a single bullock. It 

 has occurred to me we might do much better by adopting the eastern 

 system of soiling, as I have been told that by this system an acre of 

 land capable of yielding seventy-five bushels of corn will support one 

 or even two or three head of cattle throughout the year. Will some 

 member of the Clubj familiar with the subject, state what amount of 

 such land would be required to support twenty head of cattle or milch 

 cows, in what it should be planted, at what times the different crops 

 should be sown and cut, and how many acres should be devoted to 

 each ? 



Mr. Henry Stewart — Twenty acres of land, with a proper system 

 of stall-feeding, have often supported as many head of stock, and, on 

 such land as will produce seventy-five bushels of corn per acre, will do 

 it at any time. One-fourth of the land should be in roots, one-fourth 



