257 
worthy secretary of the Agricultural Society, has practised 
this upon a large scale for a number of years. A field of 
14 acres is divided by him into seven parts, and sown with 
barley, red clover, mangel wurtzel, winter tares, Swedish 
turnips, spring tares, and turnips ; — affording seven acres 
of winter food and seven acres of summer food for the cattle 
in the farm yard. He says — " There is no doubt that one 
" acre of these crops, carted green to the farm yard, and 
" given to horses and cattle in a cool stable, will go further 
" than four acres of the best grass land ; and by the prac- 
" tice of soiling, an arable farm may be made to support as 
" much stock as a grazing one." — Farming at Scorehy^ jo. 26. 
J. W. Childers, Esq.'s plan of winter fattening of sheep 
deserves mention. Sheep fed by him in sheds on turnips, 
with linseed cake \ lb. per sheep per day, ^ pint of barley per 
sheep per day, a little hay, and a constant supply of salt, 
consume nearly one-fifth less food, and make one-third greater 
progress than those fed with the very same food in the open 
field. In ten weeks each lot becomes fat, so that three lots, 
in number according to the size of the shed, may be fed off 
in the winter, and each of these gain in that time from 33 lb. 
to 40 lb. per head, and pay from 15s. to 20s. each. In ten 
weeks, each sheep consumed \ a ton of turnips, and thus 
every acre of 20 tons will feed 40 sheep ; while on the usual 
plan of feeding alone on turnips out of doors, 20 tons will keep 
only 20 sheep, and it requires four months to get them fat, with 
a gain of only 20 lbs. of flesh each. The artificial food costs 
from 6d. to lOd. per week for each sheep, and the turnips, with 
this addition, thus go four times as far, or produce four times the 
amount of flesh; for on the out-door plan, on turnips alone, 20 
tons produce only 400 lb. of flesh, (or 1 ton produces 20 lb., or 
one cwt. of turnips, 1 lb. of flesh,) — while on Mr. Childers' 
plan, i a ton produces 40 lb. of flesh, or one cwt. of turnips 
produces 4 lb. of flesh, to say nothing, on the old system, of 
the loss of time and the liability to disease. H. S. Thompson, 
