272 
The Agriculture of Staffordshire. 
&c., and run on tlie store pastures in tlie daytime ; tlie dry food 
keeps tliem in health, and is necessary to their well-doing even 
when grass is plentiful. On rich land, near Burton, where grains 
for winter-feeding can easily be obtained, a liberal feeding is 
practised ; the head of stock kept on a farm of 120 acres of arable 
and 180 of good grass is as follows, during the summer : — 
50 cows ; 
20 two-year-old heifers, to calve next spring ; 
20 yearlings ; 
20 calves; 
60 ewes. 
About 27 acres of hay are mov/n. Mr. INIeakin, the tenant, 
fattens his cast cows in July and August, giving them cake on 
the pastures. During the drought of last summer all his neat 
stock had about three-quarters of a bushel of grains a day. For 
the year ending 5th April, 1869, his outlay on food was 500/. 
The price of grains varies, 2d., Sd. and Ad. to even Id. per bushel, 
according to demand and season. 
The usual system of wintering young stock is to give them one 
bushel of mangold a day, v/ith straw-chaff and no corn. This 
food is said to come off the farm. But on the heavier clays meal 
is cheaper than roots. On the poor heavy clays, worth only 20s. 
an acre to rent, bare fallow is considered a safe and inexpensive 
system. On such land a common rotation is — 
Bare fallow ; 
Wheat ; 
Seeds for two or three years ; 
Wheat or oats. 
Or tares are eaten off on the fallow, or removed for horses, cows, 
and pigs. 
The strong-land farmer, on good subsoils, begins the fallow with 
a 10-inch furrow before winter with three or four horses. As the 
horse and manual labour on dairy farms can be concentrated, 
when desired, on the limited extent of ploughed land, a rotation 
of crops need not be adhered to so carefully as on arable farms, 
where a little irregularity disturbs the adjustment of labour ; the 
cropping is often very irregular and severe. Good deep marls, 
into which the plough may go any depth without change in the 
character of the soil turned up, may, with good treatment, be 
cropped successively with corn, without apparent exhaustion. 
Deep-ploughing is then essential, and helps to prevent corn from 
becoming laid. Heavy clays, with inferior subsoils, are seldom 
ploughed more than 6 inches deep. The first ploughing is given 
in spring. Three ploughings follow during the summer : it is 
considered necessary to plough very heavy land five times. The 
