Robert Balcewell. 
9 
later life lie acknowledged a change of opinion upon this question, 
and made a corresponding change in his practice. 1 His convic- 
tion of the superior value of this fertiliser over the mixed 
contents of a stratv-yard was so strong that he was willing to 
take in his neighbours’ cattle, so far as he had room for them, 
and to feed them on straw without further recompense than 
their returns towards the enrichment of the land. 
The difficulty of inducing cattle to eat up straw without 
waste may occur to the reader. This was overcome by giving 
only a small quantity at each feed. The animal, eating with a 
keen appetite, would not leave any, and not having at one feed 
fully satisfied its hunger, was always prepared to clear up the 
next feed to the last straw. All lean cattle in winter — from 
November to the end of March — had straw as their only food; 
young cattle requiring to be kept in a growing and thriving state, 
and cattle in process of fattening, straw and turnips until the 
turnips were finished in spring, and afterwards hay as the sole 
substitute for roots. Neither hay nor straw was bought, yet 
the cattle always looked well, and the usual numbers of the 
different kinds of stock upon the farm were 60 horses, 400 
large sheep, and 150 head of cattle, all sorts and ages counted. 
More than once 170 of the latter had been wintered. 
On the planting of hedges, as on every other branch of farm 
work, Mr. Bakewell had his own strong opinions of the way how, 
and how not, to do it. He preferred planting on the level, three- 
year old quicks, with plenty of manure. On road-making he 
is said to have satisfied himself that if people would only make 
their roads concave, instead of convex, and mend them by 
watering, one shilling that way would go as far as five shillings 
the other way ! By some of his watercourses he grew willows, 
which were cut every seven years, peeled, and reared in a stack 
for making handles of rakes, forks, and other tools, and fencing 
for newly-planted hedges. 
We have seen in the instance of his irrigated land how 
Mr. Bakewell tested the worth of his notions by frequent and 
varied experiment. He did the same in every department of the 
farm. This was the grand source of his power. He did not 
try to make facts square with his opinions, but his opinions with 
facts. His animals in their lifetime were often submitted to 
1 See Mr. George Culley’s notes upon a paper entitled Observations made 
at Mr. BalieivelVs in 1771, communicated by the Duke of Buccleuch to the 
Board of Agriculture under Sir John Sinclair’s presidency, and supposed to be 
written by a Scotch farmer (Annals of Agriculture, Vol, XXVIII. [1797], 
pp. 588-rCOl). * ' ‘ d 
