258 
Esq., of Kirby Hall, in a shed with a boarded floor, (which 
is requisite) and which contains 120 sheep, the cost of which 
was £25, has obtained the same beneficial results. Against 
this system has been urged the loss of treading to light 
land, but consolidation of the soil can surely be given by 
Crosskill's roller, and at a time when required. The quan- 
tity of manure* saved is greater; for sheep dung in winter is 
entirely washed away and evaporated from the surface in six 
weeks, and in summer when cloverleys are ploughed, very 
little of it can be seen. There is certainly a loss of urine to 
the soil, for although a portion is absorbed by the straw, 
some must soak into the floor of the yard. An asphalte floor 
made contiguous to the general tank of the homestead, would 
afibrd an immense supply of the glille of Switzerland, if 
washed down daily with water. According to Block, 100 lb. 
of turnips, eaten by sheep, yield 15 lbs. of excrement, 100 lb. 
of hay 42 lb., 100 lb. of straw 40 lb., (fluid and solid,) and 
from 1001b. of corn 49 lb. of dry excrement is derived. The 
dung and urine from every 20 tons of turnips will be therefore 
60 cwt., and that from the barley, oil cake, and hay, 5 cwt. 
each, making a total for every acre of 75 cwt. of solid dung, — 
and the solid dung of sheep is equal, in effect, to half the 
quantity of bones, as will be shown. If the litter be regu- 
larly removed, an immense quantity of common manure would 
thus be made. This system certainly merits the attention of 
the strong-landf farmer, who can grow turnips, but cannot 
eat them off with sheep. 
* "The manure obtained by shed-feeding is one-third more than that in the 
field. According to Morton, an acre of turnips (twenty tons) will keep 12^ 
sheep six months, and manure it well ; but in the Report of the Harleston 
Farmers' Club for 1839, three acres of land are stated to have been dressed for 
turnips with the manure of twenty-four sheep, kept in a yard for six months on 
Swedes, hay, oil cake, and the crop of turnips was equal, if not superior, to any 
in the neighbourhood. Twelve sheep will therefore manure 1^ acres. —Farmers' 
Magazine, March, 1840. 
t On soils that will bear the turnips to be fed off by sheep, a good plan is to 
open draw off one half of the crop — the remainder to be left for the stock ewes to be 
