140 



FOREIGN MANURES. 



not even the drover's expenses. The best returns seldom leave 

 anything for cake ; and so long as foreign produce is substituted 

 for our own to fatten cattle, the effect will be similar. Besides^ 

 the demand for barley, from many causes, decreases every year ; 

 and as the ports are open at a less rate of dut}^, the surplus 

 must be infinitely greater. Surely, then, it must be incumbent 

 on the agriculturists of this country to alter their system, and 

 obtain a supply of artificial food from the resources of their 

 own soil. In proportion as the cultivation of barley could be 

 curtailed, the supply must necessarily be diminished, and the 

 command of price placed more in the grower's power. The 

 money value to him of the less supply would^ as I have at- 

 tempted to show, be equal to that of the larger. To prevent 

 so great an excess in future, the appropriation of one acre in 

 seven of all lands that were intended to be sown with barley to 

 the growth of linseed, peas, and beans, would reduce the supply 

 to the extent I have mentioned ; have precisely the same effect 

 on the price of barley ; be extremely beneficial to the soil in 

 the rotation of crops ; and afford some millions of tons of 

 nutritious food, upon which cattle and sheep will thrive beyond 

 the belief of those who have never tried the experiment, re- 

 turning at the same time as rich and lasting a description of 

 manure as can possibly be obtained from any other source. 



Connected with our present system of farming is an immense 

 annual outlay for foreign manures, and in which doubtless as 

 many impositions are practised as with cake. I believe if the 

 Belgian mode of making manure were practised in this country, 

 we should be rendered perfectly independent of foreign aid. 

 The Flemish farmers say, "that without manure there is no 

 corn ; without cattle there is no manure ; without green crops 

 and roots cattle cannot be kept ; and he who can make manure 

 at the least cost is the best farmer." 



I have long exemplified the beneficial results of house- 

 feeding cattle on green crops, and now all my bullocks are 

 provided with a separate box. 



I do not speak of turnips, because the management of that 

 crop is too Avell known to require any observations from me. 

 But with respect to the economy of carrying grass from the 

 field and giving it to bullocks in houses, cut short with an 



