Recent Improvements in Dairy Fraclice. 
83 
Increase in Quantity. 
In order to show an increase in the dairy produce of any ^Iven 
district, it would be necessary to know its aggregate amount 
at different periods ; but as, to the best of my knowledge, no 
records exist which furnish this information as derived from 
.any dairy district in England, it will be impossible to contrast 
our present average produce witli that of former years. The 
only course, therefore, which we can adopt is to take a single 
farm which may be considered a fair specimen of the district in 
which it is situated. A farm of 150 acres in this county, of fair 
quality, divided into 110 acres of pasture and 40 of arable, 
would, some years ago, probably have been stocked with 
30 cows, 5 or G heifers (to keep up the stock), besides a few 
horses. The arable course Avould have been 1 fallow, 2 wheat, 
3 beans, 4 wheat again, 5 clover mown twice, then fallow again ; 
barley being grown occasionally on suitable soil.* It v/as 
thought that on the pasture-land no more cows could be kept 
than the one-half would maintain in summer, the other half 
being mown for winter-keep ; that would give (allowing 3 acres 
per cow) 90 acres for 30 cows, and 20 acres would be left for 
the young stock and horses. The arable land at this time 
received the greater part, if not all, the manure. 
A farm of this description would now keep 50 cows. The 
larger part of the arable land would be in grass and roots, corn 
being grown only on the decay of the grass plant, which, instead 
of being mown would be grazed by the cows, and admit of being 
stocked a fortnight earlier in spring than the meadow-grass : the 
straw would be cut into chaff and mixed with roots, meal, oil- cake, 
or some other substitute to make it equal in nutriment to 
hay. The roots would be chiefly grown by artificial manures, 
and a portion of them fed off" by dry sheep, so that a consider- 
able part of the yard manure could be spared for the pasture- 
land. Although I have spoken above only of an increase of 
20 cows, I know some farms on which the extra number is even 
larger. 
Where the farm is wholly pasture, as is the case with a large 
number of the dairy-farms in this county, there cannot be as large 
an increase of produce as is stated alaove. Yet even here, as 
the land is made to carry as much stock as possible, the increase 
in the number kept is considerable. Some farmers will feed 
nearly all their land and sell the cows in the autumn, looking 
forward to replacing them in the spring of the year. This seems 
to be an expensive mode of increasing dairy produce ; but where 
* Clover is not so much sown on dairy-farms as it would be if it could be safely- 
fed by cows. 
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