Exj)eriments on the Feeding of Stock. 
437 
M. Reiset has prefaced his scientific researches by an abstract 
of his proceedings in stocking and managing* his farm, which 
is full of good sense. Having no pasture, he wisely turned 
his attention to sheep, rather than oxen, selecting an improved 
native race (Charmois) and crossing it, first with Leicester blood, 
and then, to better effect, with Southdown rams. But for early 
fattening, his experiments show that these foreign crosses are 
still much inferior to our English sheep. 
His first step to the improvement of his land brings out 
in striking relief the strong and weak side of the position of a 
scientific and liberal reformer. He found that the sewage of 
Dieppe ran to waste on the sea-shore ; analysed it ; found that it 
contained more than 1 per cent, of nitrogen ; contracted to buy 
it at Is. Zd. per ton ; carted it some six miles to his land, and, by 
applying 20 tons per acre, grew 40 tons of mangold and 50 
bushels of rape-seed per acre. The Agricultural Society of 
Rouen verified these results, and recognised their importance by 
the award of a gold medal. Thus far we have a bright picture. 
But when public attention was aroused, farmers close at hand 
became competitors ; the price rose from Is. ?>d. to 10s. and 12s. 
per ton, and M. Reiset was driven out of the market. Some 
will think, if not saj', when he had got hold of a good thing, w hy 
did not he keep it to himself? But the liberal man stands by 
liberal things, because he has, not r, nostrum, but a living power, 
and he is not at his wits' end when one device fails him. When 
this extraneous source of fertility was cut off, a distillery, built 
and supplied .with mangold on the farm, afforded both a high 
price for the produce and a home store of food for stock, and so 
of manure, from which no fertiliser of material value had been 
abstracted by the spirit, which was manufactured and exported. 
The great practical question of our day appears to be how we 
are to produce economically a greater supply of meat. The cul- 
tivation of mangold Avith a view to distillation, appears thus far 
to be the French solution of the question, 'and as such deserves 
some special attention. As a consequence of the new demand 
for roots, the four-course was substituted for the scourging three- 
course of the district, viz., wheat, oats, and industrial crops, 
principally rape (grown for seed), under which system the old- 
fashioned, farmers around had just kept the wolf from the door. 
The supply of mangold pulp led to stall-feeding cdw-stock ; 
autumn purchases, or crowded houses, as usual introduced pleuro- 
pneumonia. M. Reiset grappled resolutely with the malady. 
Inoculation was tried on a large scale, under the charge of M. 
Delafond. "I cannot affirm,"' says M. Reiset, "that this is a 
certain means of prevention, but assuredly it is not at all dan- 
gerous when carefully executed, and may be recommended to all 
