166 



FURTHER ADVANTAGES OF BOX-FEEDING. 



of artificial food to fatten cattle, and the sale of flax, will be 

 fresh sources of wealth to the British farmer ; because hands 

 must be drawn from the manufacturing towns to prepare the 

 flax for market ; and because an impetus would be given to 

 home-trade in general by the increased price of wages, and by 

 the consequent consumption of all the common necessaries of 

 life." 



With these preliminary observations I shall proceed to point 

 out, in some measure, the advantages of box-feeding and 

 summer-grazing over the present system of fattening and feed- 

 ing cattle in yards or fields. I say in some measure, for how- 

 ever correct my calculations relative to the direct, it is impossible 

 to form any adequate estimate of the indirect advantages. 

 These flow through innumerable channels," and merge at last 

 into an ocean of national benefits ; which, to the eye fixed only 

 upon individual profit, would cease to be discerned; while the 

 sagacious statesman, the moral philosopher, and the Christian 

 philanthropist, will readily perceive and acknowledge their 

 universal importance. 



These sentiments may perhaps be considered by some of 

 your readers as too lofty for our humble theme ; but be it 

 remembered, that the most enlightened minds ever have been, 

 and still are, devoted with increasing fervour, to the study of 

 agriculture. And I would ask, whence springs our national 

 wealth, if not from the manure that fructifies the soil? Hence, 

 to use the language of the poet, 



" Britannia sees 

 Her solid grandeur rise." 



With respect to the calculations promised in my former 

 letter, I would observe, that the advantages of feeding cattle 

 in boxes consist in the absence of all that waste of food, which 

 in a yard it is impossible to prevent. In boxes, opportunity 

 is afibrded for placing before each bullock an equal portion of 

 turnips, which cannot be the case in a yard where cattle are 

 indiscriminately mixed. 



In boxes, every bullock can eat at his leisure, ruminate 

 unmolested, and take his rest. 



In a yard, the master-cattle consume the choicest parts of the 



