1865.] Agriculture. 71 



year. There are, however, many things upon a farm which interfere 

 with the uniformity of the curve of individual weekly milk produce. 

 For instance, cows are not fed uniformly throughout the year. They 

 generally begin with hay and roots, immediately after calving, not get- 

 ting on to grass till May, and this grass gets short during haymaking 

 time, increasing in abundance when the aftermath is available. Neither 

 are cows in uniform health, nor is the weather by any means a uni- 

 form influence. All these things interfere with the uniformity of 

 the yield of milk and with the regularity of the curve representing it. 

 The curve given on the annexed diagram represents, not the yield 

 of an individual cow ; but the yield per cow of the whole herd ; and 

 here another item comes in to affect its character. Cows do not all 

 come to the pail together, and thus the milk produce of a dairy-farm 

 never altogether ceases. The curved line representing it, thus never 

 altogether touches the base line. It rises rapidly dming the spring 

 months as the cows are calving, and as the green and succulent food 

 of the pastures becomes available : it rises to a height dependent on 

 the dairy character of the herd, and the abundance of the food supply ; 

 it falls occasionally, with more or less regularity, according to varia- 

 tions of temperature and of food and health. All these particulars 

 are observable in the curves before us. The curve of 1864 is not so 

 high as usual, owing to the deficiency of food in the fields, which the 

 drought occasioned. The curve of 1863 shows a remarkable depression 

 during autumn, owing to an attack of the distemper from which the 

 whole herd suffered for several weeks. Occasional depressions seen in 

 others of the curves, which are owing to bad weather, will probably be 

 found paralleled in the annual temperature curve of the time, if it be 

 examined. And every one of them exhibits more or less of a depression 

 during June or July, when the food supply suffers just before the 

 aftermath comes into use. We give these diagrams to illustrate both 

 the quantity of information which may be thus conveyed to the farmer, 

 and the intelligence which is now brought to bear upon the varying 

 experience of the farm. 



The utilization of London sewage is again occupying attention. 

 Baron Liebig has written to Lord Robert Montague, who had obtained 

 a Committee of the House of Commons for the consideration of the 

 subject, to declare that it is not a complete manure, but must be supple- 

 mented with additions of phosphate of lime and other ingredients, ac- 

 cording to scientific recipes, or it will soon create as much agricultural 

 disap p ointment as it is now exciting hope. Sewage is deficient in phos- 

 phoric acid, and therefore, says Baron Liebig, although " on a soil rich 

 (in its natural state) in phosporic acid, it will have an excellent effect, 

 producing, for instance, large crops of grass, turnips, and corn, if the 

 soil supplies the quantity of phosphoric acid wanting in sewage, yet 

 as in each successive crop, a certain quantity of phosphoric acid is 

 abstracted, the total quantity is by the continual application of sewage 

 gradually diminishing every year, and a time must come when the 

 phosphoric acid is insufficient for further crops, and when sewage 

 ceases to produce its former effects." Accordingly, " for each crop 

 the composition of the sewage ought to be corrected according to the 



