CHAPTER VI. 



ON STOCK AND IMPLEMENTS OF AGRICULTURE. 



I now proceed to consider the materials, by the use of 

 which so much benefit may be produced, — stock and imple- 

 ments of agriculture. 



The number of cattle on most estates exceeds their 

 requirements, but their strength is generally quite inade- 

 quate to what is expected of them, even for the usual 

 carting operations. This arises from the little care 

 bestowed either in feeding or lodging them. They 

 are left, when not at work during the day, to ramble 

 about upon some bare and arid pasture, or " hungry hill- 

 side," to pick up a miserable subsistence among the 

 roots of the coarse herbage, while, from the carelessness of 

 the herdsmen, they are continually destroying the growing 

 crops in passing and repassing. And at night they are 

 turned into some comfortless pen on a bleak field, or 

 exposed yard, sometimes up to their knees in filth, and 

 exposed to every vicissitude of weather, often to the 

 pouring of incessant rain; while their food varies from bad 

 to worse, either the green and often tainted tops of the 



