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The Agriculture of Pembrokeshire, 
is, under the fostering influence and example of Earl Cawdor, 
the garden of the county. 
General Remakes. 
To take a general survey of my subject, the first thing that 
occurs to one's mind is the evident fact, that rearing such a large 
number of young animals must be very exhausting to the soil ; 
and, further, this exhaustion is not compensated by a corre- 
sponding amount of feeding, either by the fatting of cattle 
upon this soil, or by the application of manures in sufficient 
quantity. A milch cow obtains nourishment for her own body, 
as well as for all the constituents of her milk, from the food 
she eats ; and this food being grass, it follows that the cow 
takes more from the soil than is returned to it in her dung and 
urine. The same thing occurs with the mare and ewe. Again, 
all growing animals require those constituents chiefly that build 
up bone and tissue ; whereas the more mature animal that is 
fatting requires less of them. Therefore in the first the manure 
will contain less of these elements than in the second. The 
constituents required to form bone and tissue are chiefly lime, 
]>otash, phosphoric acid, and nitrogen ; those required to form 
fat are carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen ; both series are contained 
in milk. It has been stated that these constituents are all 
obtained by the animal from the grass eaten ; the grass obtains 
all the first series from the soil, but the carbon almost entirely 
from the atmosphere, while the hydrogen and oxygen are 
derived from water. It follows from this that if the system 
of keeping milch cows and young stock be followed con- 
tinuously, without an equally continuous returning to the soil of 
those constituents which these animals carry away, the land 
must become impoverished, that is to say, exhausted more or 
less of these constituents. Then as a consequence, the plants — 
sorts of grass which are richest in these constituents, and as 
a matter of course require them in the soil as food — become 
impoverished too. Inferior grasses take their place, and the 
pasture is not equal to feeding as many cattle as formerly, 
nor do the cows give the same quantity and quality of milk. 
That land in this county has been subjected to this sort of 
exhaustion there can be no question. I am well aware that 
very large quantities of manures are used in some parts of the 
county, and possibly more than in many other counties, but yet- 
the land of Pembrokeshire wants more manure to bear the drain 
on its resources. 
Wlien Mr. Clare Scwell Read made his report, the only 
auxiliary manure was guano, but since then various so-called 
