274 
The Agriculture of Staffordshire. 
while on turnips thcj often scour and are restless. Cabbages are 
given whole on the pastures, and later in the season are either 
pulped or placed in the trough whole. When frosted, they are 
liable to produce hoven, unless kept in a warm shed to thaw 
before being used ; 56 lbs. given at two meals are as much as a 
large cow should have in a day. Frequent cases of abortion are 
caused hy an over-supply of green food. Cabbages are excellent 
for young animals, keeping them in health and preventing '• black 
leg." A calf of seven months may have 20 lbs. a day. 
The seeds, sown in corn to lie three years, are a mixture, costing 
about 285. an acre, and containing some of the perennial grasses 
as V, ell as the clovers. For permanent pasture, sown in June 
without a crop, after spring fallow and 3 tons of lime, the seeds 
used arc one quaiter per acre of purchased Yorkshire hay-seeds, 
to which are added about 6 lbs. white clover, 3 lbs. alsike, 2 lbs. 
trefoil, 1 lb. cow-grass, 2 lbs. rib-grass, and 1 peck Italian rye- 
grass. 
The application of bones to pastures, exhausted by years of 
depasturing with dairy cattle, has been generally resorted to, and 
in the case of worn-out cow pastures the effects upon the herbage 
have been marvellous. They are not found to answer on dry 
light land, but they seldom fail on the moister heavier soils which 
have been underdrained ; 3 or 4 cwts. per acre are applied, and 
occasionally heavier dressings for moi'e permanent improvement. 
Rough pastures are greatly improved by grazing them close with 
ewes in winter when they are receiving dry food. By giving 
grazing animals corn, the herbage is gradually improved and made 
to yield good crops of hay. Old turf-fields of poor cold wet clay, 
producing but little grass, and that of an inferior description, may 
by this means, after draining, be made to yield sweet grass, thick 
at bottom and full of good herbage. 
In the narratives which follow I have endeavoured to describe 
the systems followed on two well managed dairy farms. 
Mr. W. T. Canington, of Hollington, near Uttoxeter, is the 
author of the Staffordshire Agricultural Society's prize essay "On 
the most Scientific and Practical Mode of producing Cheese 
profitably in the Counties of Stafford and Derby," 1860, and of an 
excellent practical paper " On Dairy Farming " (see this Journal, 
vol, i., 2nd series, part ii.). I found in riding over Mr. Carrington's 
farm that he has practised very successfully what he has described 
very clearly. On one portion of his occupation, consisting of 
180 acres of poor clay land, he has drained, at his own expense, 
during the last six years, upwards of 60 acres of arable and 
pasture land, 4 feet deep, ten ^ards apart, at a cost of about 51. 
per acre. By this means and Ijy liberally top-dressing the poor 
pastures (when drained) with bones and guano, and by the con- 
