JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
160 
parisons had been carried out. The chief point to which we wish 
to call attention is the diminished quantity of cake used, and the 
fact of feeding with straw instead of hay ; for instance, give 2 lbs. 
more cake per day, and a fair allowance of hay to each bullock, 
and the item now standing as profit would be lost without advan¬ 
tage in return. We contend that 4 lbs. of best linseed cake per 
day is as much as the stomach of the animal can assimilate and 
convert into meat advantageously, for we have found that hay 
clogs the stomach, as we have never known a straw-fed bullock 
refuse either roots or cake, which they frequently do with hay 
feeding. An objection is sometimes raised to bullock-feeding by 
stating that the land requires the tread of the sheep and the 
whole root crop consumed upon it, and this is true upon light and 
poor sails ; but upon the mixed or dry friable loamy soils in good 
condition one-third at least of the root crop can be spared for 
bullock-feeding, the remaining two-thirds being fed off by sheep 
on the land with oilcake, or corn and hay. This will leave such 
soils quite rich enough to produce a full crop of Lent corn, and 
the roots removed for consumption by bullocks in their boxes 
will convert large quantities of straw into rich manure to be 
applied to other parts of the farm. 
We wish here to draw a contrast between the effects of sheep 
manuring and box-made dung. It is well known to practical 
farmers that sheep in the winter months do not always manure 
the land regularly. For shelter in bad weather they often 
huddle together under hedges or on the lee side of the hurdles, 
and therefore drop their dung in excess in those parts, whereas 
other parts get little or none. Not so, however, with the box 
manure, for it can be applied at the discretion of the farmer 
upon those fields or parts of fields in such proportions as may 
be necessary. These observations do not apply with full force 
to stall feeding, because there is usually more or less waste of 
manure, arising from its exposure to drought or wet weather, 
and frequently by undue and excessive fermentation in the heap ; 
but in box-made manure, when it is properly managed, there will 
be no loss, for when earth is placed at the bottom of the boxes 
the liquid manure is absorbed, and the accumulating mass of 
dung is always in a fit state for removal and application to the 
land, and can be allowed to remain in the box until required for 
use without loss. We wish also to observe that feeding sheep in 
the open field is often attended with losses consequent upon their 
exposure, &c., and we have also experienced severe losses from 
inflammatory disorders, also diarrhoea and epidemic lameness, 
foot rot, &c. On the other hand, we consider neat cattle kept 
under cover subject to but little loss generally. Although pleuro¬ 
pneumonia has in some instances prevailed, it is quite an excep¬ 
tional disease, particularly among box-fed animals, and during 
our own experience we have scarcely ever lost a fatting bullock. 
It may probably be asked how boxes are to be obtained for cattle 
feeding upon farms in general. We reply, Take the barns as we 
have done for the purpose, let them be partitioned at a small 
expense with larch poles, and they will prove better accommo¬ 
dation than any buildings usually erected for the purpose of box¬ 
feeding. For further information upon accommodation for cattle 
we refer the home farmer to articles in this Journal under date of 
the 16th, 23rd, and 30th of September last. 
Now threshing by steam prevails the corn and straw is better 
in stack than in barn, and nearly all the farms in the arable land 
districts have barns ; they are therefore provided with the space 
for box-feeding a good number of fat bullocks. Mr. Lawe’s 
experiments, as given in vol. xxii. of the “Journal of the Royal 
Agricultural Society,” strongly support our experience, and upon 
which our calculations have been made—namely, that his bullocks 
show about the same gain or increased value, 16 lbs. of beef being 
the average increase per week, and yet it includes some animals 
which did not thrive, their gain being much below the average. 
Still we cannot ask the home farmer to expect results equal to 
our own or Mr. Lawes’s, unless the animals are of good breed and 
forward in flesh at the time of purchase ; besides, it is always neces¬ 
sary when a bullock does not thrive to sell it for what it will fetch, 
the first sacrifice being always the least. If we were asked how 
we would proceed with a poor bullock, we should feed it for three 
months at a cost of not more than 5.?. per week. We should, how¬ 
ever, much prefer taking an animal in high condition and pay a 
price accordingly. There are, in fact, many of our farming opera¬ 
tions which should depend upon statements like those brought 
forward here. For instance, the straw grown on the farms is 
often greatly neglected, and is never made into good manure 
where sheep only are kept to consume the root crops. Again, 
bullocks could not usurp the place of sheep entirely upon the 
farms where a full quantity of roots were grown, because there 
would not be straw enough produced to feed and litter them, and 
the same result would obtain in case of house-feeding the whole 
f February 24, 1881. 
stock, supposing the food to be divided between bullocks and 
sheep, each being under cover. 
We shall now refer to the evidence afforded by eminent prac¬ 
tical men showing that sheep, either as a stock flock on the hill 
farms or grazing and fatting flock on the vale farms, are kept at 
a loss, in accordance with our own statement of the feeding of 
dry sheep, either tegs or wethers. Taking the result of keeping a 
breeding stock flock first. We mu6t notice a paper furnished to 
the “Journal of the Bath and West of England Society” by 
Mr. E. P. Squarey, on “ The Hill Farming of Wiltshire and 
Hampshire in 1861.” In this we find a most elaborate and prac¬ 
tical statement of the result of sheep-farming, illustrated by a 
farm of 800 acres, managed, according to the custom of the chalk 
hill districts, by a debtor and creditor account of the sheep stock 
for a year, which shows a loss upon the transaction of £111, with¬ 
out charging wear and tear of hurdles, &c., and cost of superin¬ 
tendence. We must also give the result estimated by a number 
of practical members of one of the most important farmers’ clubs 
in the kingdom of the feeding and fatting of two hundred Hants 
Down ewes and their lambs, together with one hundred tegs, all 
fed for the butcher upon a vale arable farm. A minute and de¬ 
tailed debtor and creditor account exhibits a loss on the trans¬ 
action of £62. There are no more and important accounts to be 
found than those we have brought forward ; but it must be borne 
in mind it is without any reference to the value of the manure 
left on the land, for that would vary greatly according to circum¬ 
stances, and as that is not part of our subject now it will be dealt 
with at a future time. In referring to the experiments relating 
to the comparative consumption of bullocks and sheep the most 
valuable we can find was carried out at the Duke of Bedford’s 
some years ago. The average weight of the sheep experimented 
upon was 147 lbs., the animals belonging to various breeds. The 
bullocks, which were all well-bred animals (Herefords and 
Devons) weighed on an average 1415 lbs., being a proportion of 
nine-and-a-half to one in weight. The sheep consumed 6£ lbs. of 
oilcake each per week, and the oxen 43 lbs., thus the average 
quantity consumed by an ox and sheep respectively was in the 
proportion of about one to four. Now this experiment, as well as 
others we could furnish if necessary, most completely accords 
with the food as estimated in our debtor and creditor account as 
given in the first part of this article. 
After having stated thus much to prove that abundance of 
evidence exists to justify all our estimates we must, however, be 
prepared to expect some diversity of opinion, for some farmers 
may say that 1 lb. of oilcake per day is too much for a sheep. 
We, however, are not disposed to quarrel about it, for we can only 
state our own experience and that of many other farmers that if 
half a pound of cake per day only was given the increased value 
of the animals at the end of twenty weeks’ feeding would be only 
15s., whilst with 1 lb. of cake it would be 20s. We have also 
noticed a variety of experiments of feeding cattle and sheep 
under the like conditions by many good farmers. But under our 
subject they are treated differently—the oxen under cover, the 
sheep in the open field ; but it should be remembered that it is no 
suggestion of ours, but it represents a general practice upon arable 
farms in nearly every district, and we have simply taken the facts 
as we found them. In our statement the cases between the ox 
and the sheep are as wide as the poles asunder, the cattle being 
fed under the best possible conditions, and the sheep under the 
worst. In estimating the casualties to which both classes of 
animals are exposed as single and individual lives the losses of 
sheep we reckon as eight to one compared with oxen. Now these 
facts, the result of great experience, furnish strong arguments in 
favour of bullock-feeding as compared with sheep. We have, 
however, not thought it desirable to estimate their money value, 
as it would only serve to render a difficult subject still more 
intricate and complicated. After all the statements we have 
made we make no doubt but many farmers who have viewed 
these matters from various standpoints will be induced to calcu¬ 
late in their own way and in their own case, and thus fulfil our 
object in introducing it in the peculiar manner shown by our 
heading of the subject; and we make no doubt that business and 
practical men will agree with us that it may be desirable to feed 
bullocks under cover with one-third of the roots grown, and sheep 
with the remainder in the open field upon soils in general. 
WORK ON THE HOME FARM. 
Horse Labour .—A very important period of the year has now 
arrived for horse labour, and this or steam culture may now be applied 
with great advantage in various ways, but none more important than 
cultivating the land in readiness for sowing Lent corn where roots 
have been fed off by sheep. We wish, however, to call special atten¬ 
tion to the cultivation of gravel or sandy soils, because, if properly 
scarified so as to break up the entire surface with regularity, it is by 
i 
