February i, 1882.] THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 
679 
(loci. 
bette 
AGRICULTURE 
( *l» 
ON THE CONTINENT 
EUROPE. 
Tho question of pasture and; 
ing important proportions in " 
work of M. Joulio has only ad 
in the subject. It is a fact off 
regions where pasture lands a 
flourishing than elsewhere. In 
examination becomes a necessii 
matter is the rearing of stock, 
1 ie market. Many agriculturists have not hesitated to 
solve tho question practically, by converting their laud 
into meadows or pasturages. M. dc Gasparin has made 
a profound remark : many farmers are ruined in con- 
Benue'nce of having too much land, but not one has over 
dome to misfortune "by having too much meadow. In 
all good grass land, whether artificial or permanent, 
there must be a relative proportion between the granun- 
forouB and leguminous plants. Taking as a base ten 
tons of hay, produced from such a mixture of plants, 
that eminent chemist, M. Joulie, finds therein 376 lb. 
of nitrogen, 1561b. of phosphoric acid, 211 of linio, 59 
magnesia, and 803 of potash. Tims compared with other 
Cultivated crops, it is not the most exhausting : with 
sugar beet for example, w hich extracts the largest quanti- 
fies of chemical substances from tho soil ; 20 tons of 
sugar beet per acre curry off from the soil 163 lb. of 
nitrogen and 136 of phosphoric acid; then follow many 
varieties of wheat which are also exhausting. Nowmanur- 
ings are reserved for roof and grain crops, grass land 
receiving none. How then does it arise that meadows 
retain their fertility '.' They become poorer, but do not 
disappear : the valuable grasses die out, and are succeeded 
by interior kinds: ii is then not so much tho quantity 
of the return that is affected, as the quality. Further, 
meadows aro generally established on tho best soil, often 
in Vttlloys, where the tillering waters bring down mini, 
tion from the more elevated lands. 
In 'J cut. of dry ordinary arable soil, there are : nitrogen 
8$ o/,., phosphoric acid 54, li 17, magnesia 10J, potash 8J 
»/• Taking the average depth of a cultivated soil at s 
inches, mii acre would contain about 82 cut. of nitrogen an. I 
the same quantity or phosphoric acid; tho other chemical 
dements in proportion. There is here mi ehor u differ- 
ence between what the soil has in store Of chemical food 
and what VOgOtfttioU exacts. An OCre of heel roqlUTl ,, 
ns we have seen, 1681b. of nitrogen, wbJlfl the SOU Oon- 
tains 82 cwt. of this element, or a Buffloieno) for 22 • 
crops of beet. A like observation will apply to the other 
in,organic nutriments. M. Joulie explains this dispropor- 
tion by the fact that each chemical element exists in 
tho soil in two forms, assimilable and unassimilable. 
I)id tho soil contain all the food in the former state, 
it would be washed away and tho land rapidly exhausted. 
Existing in an insoluble or fixed form, the azote, phos- 
phoric acid, &c, yield only each year their treasures to 
vegetation in fractional quantities. M. Joulio draws a 
comparison between grazing and cutting meadows. He 
inclines to the former, because the animals find in the 
succulent, and above all, tho young grasses, more nitro- 
genous matters, and of greater digestibility than when 
in the form of hay, where so much is woody matter 
passing through the system, without undergoing any trans- 
formation. Hence, why weight for weight of stock, 
pasture, land will support a greater number of cattle, 
than if the crop was converted into hay. The chemist 
also avers that, in an economical point of view, the 
droppings of tho animals restore immediately to the soil 
all the nutritive elements that the animal has not util- 
ized, thus saving the Labour of being converted into 
farmyard manure. Chemically, all soils aro not suited 
iudi 
o less be made so, 
grass and clover 
phosphates, lime, 
ss. M. Joulie be- 
in the atmosphere 
>f plants. In the 
dopartmei 
chief feature of agricultr 
the Nievre, the rearing of stock is tho 
and the fanners have be- 
half a century. Meadows 
there aro not permanent, and the land receives no other 
manming than the droppings of the cattle : lime is 
added largely to stimulate clover, and when, after eight 
years, a meadow is broken up, oats arc sown on the 
lea, then three grain crops, the fourth, oats along with 
clover and selected grass seeds : the meadows are never 
mown, and one head of cattle per acre is the ratio 
allowed. The stock are duly sent to tho best sugar 
growers of tho north to bo fattened. The general rota- 
tion in the Nievre is, eight or ten years glass, then oats 
two wheats, and oats as above, but no manure is ever 
added to tho soil; the soil is a sandy clay and lets 
readily for fr. 32 to 40 per acre. 
Professor Kiihn of Halle is occupied with the cross- 
ing of the cow with the yak. There is nothing new 
to be demonstrated that animals of different species, 
will breed : the evidence exists in the affirmative in the 
case of tho goat and the sheep, of the hare and the 
rabbit. A cow, tho product of a mother crossed bv a 
yak, was covered by a short-torn, and in turn pro- 
duced a calf, with all tho traits of the yak at the tail 
and head. The products of these crossings, however, are 
not fruitful between themselves, simply because they aro 
hybrids and not crosses; tho male of a hybrid is next 
to rarely so. Mules have been successfully crossed by 
asses and horses, but the same has not been the ease 
with a male mule, although the researches of Balbini 
invite caution in this respect. 
There was a Gascon once who boasted that ho gradu- 
ally reduced the rations of his mare to a point where 
tho animal lived upon nothing; only at this stage 
the mare died — which constituted a drawback. |>,, 
eussions are taking place as to the practicability of 
diminishing the rations of horses in the cavalry or 
under tho omnlbusses, by employing maize cake, bean-, 
dire, in place of costly oats ; or, feeding the horses more 
highly, Ond by exacting more work from them, require 
fewer t<> feed. Profdssox Mann lays down there is a 
point in (ho feeding <«f horses that cannot be over- 
Stepped; that high rations to one horse will not pro- 
(luce u result of work equal t<> that produced by two 
moderately fed. In the case of the omnibus horses, 
the animals exceptionally over worked, though well fed. 
aro ever those first ou the sick list. 
