On Box-feeding with Linseed Compounds. 



475 



protected from annoyance, and can feed and take their rest undis- 

 turbed, and each animal makes progress accordingly. The food 

 is not wasted in the boxes, but in the yard much of it is trodden 

 down and lost. If grass be cut and given to the cattle in the 

 house, it is generally admitted that the quantity which then feeds 

 three, would only feed one grazed in the field ; and it may, per- 

 haps, be said, that the food of one beast in the yard, will feed two 

 in the boxes : besides which, there is, as before stated, a greater 

 economy of manure. 



Farmers commonly assert that nothing is to be gained by fat- 

 tening cattle, and as it is now generally practised the saying may 

 not be without some foundation; but is this absence of profit 

 unavoidable ? — might not the result be different, if a different 

 mode of feeding were pursued? — This is an important question 

 for the English agriculturist, and to this question the system of 

 box- feeding established at Trimingham appears to afford a con- 

 clusive answer. 



But it is not for the fattening of cattle alone that this system is 

 to be commended — it likewise enables the farmer to obtain the 

 largest amount of produce from his land — the two things, in fact, 

 move together. By a regular system of box-feeding winter and 

 summer, three times the quantity of stock may be kept, and kept 

 profitably ; and the more cattle the more manure ; and the more 

 manure the more produce. All other things being equal, this 

 may be regarded as an invariable rule. 



There is an old saying that Muck is the mother of money." 

 This is certainly true, and it is equally true that box-feeding is 

 the mother of muck ; for not only are the animals fattened in the 

 least possible time, and at the least possible cost, but the largest 

 quantity of manure, and that of the very best description, is in 

 this way accumulated. The litter absorbs the excrementitious 

 matter of every kind, so that nothing is lost ; and the whole, if 

 properly preserved and properly applied, will constitute the 

 element of future fertility to the farmer. In this respect there is 

 no country so favourably circumstanced as England, for in no 

 other country does animal food enter so largely into the ordinary 

 mode of living of the people, and here therefore the greatest 

 amount of produce ought to be obtained. 



The large quantity of fertilizing manure which is acquired by 

 box-feeding, will enable the farmer to dispense with fallows and 

 keep the whole of his land under' crop, not only without ex- 

 hausting it, but with an actual increase of its productive powers, 

 provided a right rotation be observed^ and that a due amount of 

 labour be applied to its cultivation. 



The mode of feeding which fattens quickest, and at the least 

 costj and which yields the largest quantity of manure, is unques- 



