434 
JOURNAL ON HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
[ November 14, 1889. 
•date been sold at ages ranging from seven to nine months ; others 
ffhat when weaned were turned out on pasture, and with the excep¬ 
tion of stubble corn had nothing but green food till Turnip folding 
began, have now some dry food in troughs regularly, and heavy 
bills for cake are run up during winter upon many a farm, which 
■tell seriously upon profits later on. "VYe hold that sheep fatten 
equally well and far more economically upon corn, which may or 
miay not be home grown. It may answer best to sell a fine sample 
of corn, and purchase an inferior one for feeding purposes. What¬ 
ever may be used it is well to proceed with caution, and not rush 
into extremes by taking the hoggets at once from grass only to a 
full dietary of corn or cake. Our aim is not only to finish the 
’hoggets for market, but to finish the whole of the folding that is 
required to be done before the ewes and lambs are taken upon the 
land next spring. The entire matter is one of simple calculation 
which may be worked out before making a single fold, and if this 
were done more generally it would tend to check much rash and 
unnecessary expenditure upon cake. 
We know a great flock-master who at the present time has some 
£10,000 invested in hoggets, all of them being kept going quietly 
upon Turnips, with just enough dry food to keep them sound, 
healthy, and in store condition. They will be gradually dispersed 
in small or large lots, to be finished in folds by the buyers, into 
whose hands they will go quite ready for high feeding. The store 
hoggets are not confined steadily to the Turnips, but are given a 
daily turn for a few hours on pasture, to which they may occasion¬ 
ally be withdrawn altogether in very wet weather—not, be it under¬ 
stood, to low-lying wet pasture, but to that which is sound and 
well drained. It is not every farmer who has the much-valued 
upland pasture to turn to now, but there are few farms where 
really sound pasture cannot be had. 
(To be continued.) 
WORK ON THE HOME FARM. 
Dairy cows are now being gradually settled in the yards for winter, 
and they will soon be withdrawn altogether from the pasture, and it 
will depend very much upon yard management whether the dairy 
produce continues good throughout winter. We saw recently a small 
barn that had been converted into a cowhouse, and it appeared to us 
quite a model building for the purpose. The cow stalls were along each 
side, with a wide passage down the centre of the building. The entire 
floor was of concrete faced with Portland cement, that of the stalls 
sloping gently down to a shallow gutter to carry off filth. The floor 
■could thus be kept thoroughly clean, and pure air was insured by 
ventilators in the lofty roof, precisely similar to those of a Newmarket 
training stable. Each ventilator is a capped wooden shaft, with 
transverse openings at intervals in the part projecting above the roof, 
with a narrow sloping ledge over each opening to keep out snow and 
rain. Such ventilators insure pure air, and are altogether preferable to 
windows or shutters. 
Next to a good cowhouse are the yard and open sheds. Yard drains 
Rave recently been put to a severe test, and any fault should at once be 
set right. We like cows to have some exercise daily, and a large 
sheltered yard-large enough for a stack of litter in the centre — 
answers best. Many such a stack have we had of bracken, sedges, 
rushes, and coarse grasses from bog land which cattle would not 
touch. Such litter requires no other care than to be carted to the heap 
when dry, and when it can be had straw can be saved for other 
purposes. The best enclosures for the cow yard are open sheds ; so that 
these are deep and commodious it is quite immaterial how roughly they 
are constructed. As we write we have in mind a very home-spun 
affair ; a lodge we once had built of unsawn timber with the exception 
of the plate, ridge, and eave boards. The ends and back had larch slabs 
with the bark on, and the roof with a high and steep pitch was thatched 
with Heather. On the yard side it was open, but it was so wide as to 
afford perfect shelter from rain, and there was a low, wide manger all 
along the back where the cows were fed on wet and stormy days. Get 
the cows settled now in some such yard for the winter, see that the 
water is pure, the litter dry, fresh, and clean : see also that the food is 
wholesome, that udders, hands, and pails are e’ean for the milking. Try 
also to have a cow calving at intervals of two or three weeks, and you 
will do very much to insure good butter during winter. 
DYSON’S WOOD GRASS MANURING EXPERIMENTS. 
Mr. Martin J. Sutton’s interesting series of experiments with 
different manures on grass have been previously referred to, and the 
following are some of the results of the experiments :—In experiment 
A on old pasture land, some of the plots that have been manured every 
other year have yielded less than the plot that has received no manure 
whatever since the commencement of the trials in 1886. The latter 
yielded 27 cwts. 3J qrs. of hay ; but plot 2, which was manured in 1888 
with 1 cwt. sulphate of ammonia, has yielded without dressing this year 
only 22 cwts. 3 qrs. of hay ; and still worse, plot 3, which had l£ cwt. 
of nitrate of soda last year, has afforded in 1889 only 13 cwts. 3 qrs. of 
hay. This thoroughly supports Mr. Sutton’3 view that annual dressings 
do harm to grass lands unless repeated every year. The results are 
repeated similarly on experiment B, the seven years old pasture, where 
Cocksfoot has become so abundant, only the effect is not so strongly 
marked. Plots 7 to 18 in both experiments A and B have received 
manures of different kinds this year, with the exception of 11, which 
has remained unmanured. The greatest excess of produce over that of 
the latter has in experiment A been in plot 10, which received 3 cwts. of 
guano at a cost of 21s. 9d. per acre, the hay yielded being 36 cwts. 24- qrs. 
The next highest yields were 31 cwts. 2} qrs., on plot 12, manured with 
4 cwts. basic cinder and 2 cwts. kainit, the cost being only 10s. fid. per 
acre, and 31 cwts. 1 qr. on plot 15, manured with 1 cwt. nitrate of soda 
and three-quarters of a cwt. muriate potash, the cost being 17s. 6d. per 
acre. The plots similarly manured in experiment B, on the seven 
years old pasture, made good returns also, the Peruvian guano one yield¬ 
ing 36 cwts. 1J qr. of hay, the basic cinder and kainit one 32 cwts. 
1£ qr., and the nitrate and muriate of potash one 39 cwts. 3 qrs., and 
there was another heavy yielding plot in this section, that manured with 
3 cwts. dissolved bones at a cost of 18s. per acre, the yield of hay being 
38 cwts. li qr. 
Interesting as the above results are, those obtained from Mr. Sutton’s 
new set of experiments commenced this year appeared to be still more 
valuable, founded as they were chiefly with the object of comparing 
fresh combinations of manures specially to prove whether kainit, nitrate 
of potash, superphosphate or basic cinder, or what proportions of them 
mixed are best to be applied in conjunction with sulphate of ammonia 
and nitrate of soda. The subjoined table shows the yields of those plots 
which were heaviest, setting them in comparison with the crop of the 
plot that had nothing. The fact must not be forgotten, however, that 
one season may be more favourable to the action of certain manures 
than another season, and basic cinder has done better in Mr. Sutton’s 
grass plots in 1889 than it was found to do in previous years. 
No. of 
Cost 
Weight of 
hay obtained 
Plot. 
Manure applied per acre. 
per acre. 
per acre. 
1 
Nothing ... . 
s. d. 
tns.cts. 
1 13 
qr. 
Bf 
5 
Raw bone meal, 3 cwts. 
18 0 ! 
1 14 
It 
9 
Farm dung, 10 tons 
60 0 
1 16 
21 
12 
Peruvian guano, 3 cwts. 
34 10 
2 0 
4 
13 
Basic cinder 6 cwts., kainit 2 cwts. 
16 0 
2 1 
14 
Superphosphate, 3 cwts., kainit, 
2 cwts. 
12 3 
1 19 
3* 
15 
Superphosphate, 3 cwts., nitrate 
of soda, 1 cwt. 
19 3 
1 19 
3 
16 
Superphosphate 3 cwts., nitrate of 
soda 1 cwt., kainit 2 cwts. 
Superphosphate3 cwts., nitrate of 
soda 1 cwt.,muriate potash f cwt. 
23 3 
2 2 
If 
17 
25 7 
2 0 
23 
Sulphate of ammonia 1 cwt.,kainit 
2 cwts. ... . 
16 6 
1 16 
n 
24 
Sulphate of ammonia 1 cwt., kainit 
2 cwts., superphosphate 3 cwts. 
24 9 
2 1 
3| 
All the manures were applied in the spring of 1889. The dung, 
bones, basic cinder, kainit, and muriate of potash were applied to the 
plots on March 8th. The superphosphate of lime and guano were applied 
March 18th. The sulphate of ammonia on April 15th, and .the nitrate 
of soda on the 22nd of April. 
METEOROLOGICAL OBSERVATIONS. 
CAMDEN SQUARE, LONDON. 
Lat. 51° 82' 40" N.; Long. 0° 8' 0" W.; Altitude, 111 feet. 
DATE. 
9 A.M. 
IN THE DAY. 
a 
*3 
P4 
I860. 
November. 
Barome¬ 
ter at 32° 
and Sea 
Level. 
Hygrome¬ 
ter. 
Direction 
of Wind. 
Temp, of 
soil at 
1 foot. 
Shade Tem¬ 
perature. 
Radiation 
Temperature 
Dry. 
Wet. 
Max. 
Min. 
In 
sun. 
On 
grass 
Inches. 
deg. 
deg. 
deg. 
deg. 
deg. 
deg. 
deg. 
Id. 
Sunday . 
3 
29.767 
4-<.8 
48.0 
S.E. 
45.3 
52 9 
39.6 
56.1 
323 
0.238 
Monday. 
4 
29 822 
50.5 
49 0 
s.w. 
46.9 
54.9 
48.4 
67.4 
44.0 
Tuesday .... 
5 
29.946 
37 1 
36 9 
S.w. 
46 3 
47.8 
33.4 
66 4 
28.1 
_ 
Wednesday.. 
r» 
39 317 
45.0 
42.6 
s. 
44 9 
51.4 
35.4 
55 9 
23.1 
_ 
Thursday.... 
7 
3 .499 
42 9 
42.4 
s. 
45 1 
53 7 
41.2 
57.0 
34.9 
_ 
Friday . 
8 
30.592 
53 0 
52.4 
w. 
46 8 
60.3 
4.'.8 
97.3 
42.4 
_ 
Saturday .... 
9 
30.412 
47.8 
47.3 
N.W. 
47.0 
55.1 
44.9 
62.8 
40.6 
— 
30 181 
46.4 
45 5 
46.0 
53.7 
40.8 
66.1 
36.5 
0.238 
REMARKS. 
Srd.—Wet ell dav; dull damp evening. 
4tb.—Cloudy throughout. 
5tb.—Fog early, hazy morning; bright afternoon, and fog again in the evening. 
6th.—Generally cloudy, but some sun in the afternoon ; bright moonlight night. 
7th.—Dull all day. 
8th.—Bright and mild. 
9th.—Slightly fogey early; fair day, with some sunshine. 
The fifth or s xth consecutive week of almost precis ly the aver ige temreratu ’e. 
Pressure high, and only one day with rair.—G. J. SYMONS. 
