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rious accidents incident to farm ing?

I can prove the above facts by the atteftation of fufficient wit neffes, if doubted.

Accounts of Methods of Rearing Calves without Milk, or faving, it after a short time. Communicated by Mr. Budd, Mr. Forfter, and Mr. Carr, to the Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures, and Commerce, and inferted at their Requeft. From the fame.

To the Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures, and Com

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merce.

GENTLEMEN,

HAV

[AVING obferved in your book of premiums for the year 1771, your offer of a gold medal for an account of the best method of rearing black cattle

without milk; and having made many experiments for thefe four or five years past, I am induced to become a candidate for it. I therefore lay before you the fol lowing method of rearing black cattle without milk.

are calved, I take the calves from In two or three days after they the cows, and put them in a houf by themfelves. I then give them of barley about one-third, and a kind of water-gruel, compofed two-thirds of oats, ground toge ther very fine.

I then fift the mixture through a very fine fieve, mentioned below, and boil it put it into the quantity of water half an hour, when I take it off the fire, and let it remain till it is milk-warm. I then give each calf about a quart in the morning and the fame quantity in the evening; and increase it as the calf older. trouble to make them drink it. It requires very little After the calves have had this

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yet in fuch cases as he intimates, where confiderable parts of land have failed after autumn fowing, it may be done with great convenience. Nor does there, after a very careful examination of the fubject, appear any folid reason why in the feafons when the autumn culture of wheat has failed much, fresh land might not be planted with off-fets of that grain, as well to private emolument as public advantage. This practice is the more promifing, because the tranfplantation may be performed much later than the laft made by Mr. Rebecca, even till the end of April, with the fame certainty of fuccefs; and land which had borne turnips, cole-feed, or other plants for spring food, even late in the feafon, might be made to afford a large crop of wheat the fame fummer with great profit, when there was a profpect of scarcity. The apprehenfion of the Too high expence of labour has been made the great objection to this practice. But the introduction of the setting wheat inftead of flowing it, which is now done in fome places on great quantities of land, with very confiderable profit, has fet this matter in fo clear a light from large experience, that all difficulty on this fcore must be given up where those facts are known. For the faving in the quantity of feed when the corn is fet, nearly pays for the difference of the expence of labour betwixt that method and fowing, and this faving is still much greater in the cafe of transplanting than in setting, though the expence of the labour differs but little.

* This account was deemed fully fatisfactory, and the gold medal was aecordingly adjudged to Mr. Budd.

diet for about a week or ten days, I tie up a little bundle of hay, and put it in the middle of the house; which they will by degrees come to eat. I alfo put a little of the meal above mentioned in a small trough for them, to eat occafionally; which I find of great fervice to them. I keep them in this manner till they are of proper age to turn out to grafs; before which they must be at least two months old: therefore, the fooner I get them in the fpring the better.

About a quart of the above meal, mixed with three gallons of water, is fufficient for twelve calves in the morning, and the fame quantity in the evening. I increafe the quantity in proportion as they grow older. By this method I have reared between fifty and fixty beafts within these four years, forty of which I have now in my poffeffion; having fold off the others as they became of a proper age and by the fame method calves may be reared with a trifle of expence.

I am, Gentlemen,
Your most humble fervant,
WM. BUDD.

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ment in husbandry are handed about, which never have been tried, and can have no fuccefs when put to the proper teft by experience.

The account I prefume to lay. before the Society is founded on an experience of feveral years.A farmer's wife in Pruffia, who had employed this method, kept it very fecret; but keeping only two or three cows, and yet buying conftantly ten or twelve calves, and fattening them in a fhort time fo advantageoufly, that the butchers always preferred her calves to thofe they could get of other farmers, it was fufpected the had devised a new and cheap method in feeding them. Some of my relations afterwards learned this method from the farmer's wife, and found it anfwer better than the best milk for fattening calves; because it not only fucceeded in a fhorter time, and gave the veal the most delicate and savory taste, but it made the meat whiter, and was upon the whole cheaper than in the common way, as the whole milk of the dairy could be fpared for the purpose of making butter.

The infusion of malt or fresh fummer it may be given cold; wort, is the fubftitute to milk. In but in winter it must have the fame degree of warmth as the milk juft coming from the cow. The quantity is the fame as the milk commonly given at once. to a calf; and it must be increafed in proportion as the calf grows.

I wish, that in cafe the Society fhould approve of it, a new trial may be made of this method; and

if

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Before I leave this fubject, give me leave, Sir, to communicate to the Society another cheap method employed in Pruffia for rearing black citle. After the expreffion of the linfeed-oil from linfeed, the remaining hufks, or drofs, are made up into round balls of the fize of a fift, and afterwards dried. Two or three of thefe balls are infufed and diffolved in hot water; and a third or fourth part of fresh milk is added in the beginning; but afterwards, when the calves are grown, the farmers employ only the skimmed-milk, which they mix with the infufion. If this method fhould deferve the attention of the Society, it would at once fpare great quantities of milk towards making cheefe and butter, and afford a good use for the drofs left after the expreflion of the linfeed-oil.

As an ardent with to be of fome fervice to mankind by every little addition in faving husbandry, and a view to reduce the exorbitant price of provifions to the poorer and manufacturing part of my fellow-creatures in this country, prompted me chiefly to draw up this account, I hope it will meet with approbation from the Society, if not on account of its real merit and usefulness, at least for the intention, and like endeavours

to fulfil in fome meafure thofe great and noble purposes of humanity and patriotifm, which the Society itfelf purposes in all its transactions.

I am, with due regard,
Your most obedient
and humble fervant,
J. R. FORSTER.

Extract of a Letter from Mr. Carr, refpe&ting the Rearing of Calves in fuch a Manner as to fave the Milk.

IT is well known by fome of the old housewives of Norfolk to this day, the manner of rearing calves is with fleeted milk-and-water, warmed; which, being too lean and thin, turns four within them, and fometimes kills them; but in general they are pot-bellied, with their hair flaring; and fometimes they turn loufy, which feldom is cured till young grafs purges the bad humours off: which effect is cuftomary alfo with respect to hogs. In large dairies they al ways put their fleeted milk into a ciftern from day to day, in order to turn four, and curdle before they give it them; and even they put an equal quantity of water to it, otherwife it heats and binds them: wherefore they will not take enough to fatten them. But, from the cooling quality of the water, they will drink twice as much when thus mixed; and we find from experience, they do much better in this way.

The beft method I ever found of rearing calves, and which I have purfued for thirty years, is to take them off the cow's in three weeks or a month; and to give

nothing

USEFUL PROJECTS.

nothing but a little fine hay, till they begin through neceffity to pick a little. I then cut fome of the hay, and mix it with bran and oats in a trough, and flice fome turnips, about the fize of a crownpiece, which they will foon, by licking, for want of liquor, learn to eat. When the work is thus done, give them but turnips enough, and they will do well. Give them no water, unless the turnips be left off.

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different parts of the kingdom; but it never did, I believe, enter the thoughts of any one till of late years, that the damage could be nearly fo great as it is now found to be, fince unufual quantities of flints and other ftones have been repeatedly gathered for the ufe of the turnpike-roads.— Indeed the damage done by this practice to many kinds of land, efpecially to fuch as are mentioned above, is found to be fo great, as to be almost incredible to any one who has not particularly obferved for a number of years the progrefs of this deftruction. I mall, therefore, here give a few inftances out of a great many that have come to my knowledge, from which it will appear how exceedingly great the damage must be throughout the extent of the kingdom.

In the parish of Stevenage, in Hertfordshire, there is a field of land well known in that neighbourhood by the name of Chalkdell Field, containing about two hundred acres. The land in this field was formerly equal, if not fuperior, to moft lands in that county in a word, it was good to a proverb. But lying conveniently for the furveyors of the roads, they have picked it fo often, and ftripped it of the flint and fmall ftones to fuch a degree, that it is now inferior to lands that were formerly reckoned not worth above one, haif its value, acre for acre: I mean fuch lands as, lying at a good diftance from the roads, have for that reafon either not been picked at all, or not nearly fo much as this field. All the farmers and other perfons who have known the field for a

good

comes it to pafs that the farmers who hold the aforementioned lands, have not either broke, thrown up their farms, or got their rents lowered? - -none of which has generally happened. This I grant; but then let the very high price of grain for num

good number of years, and have obferved the man gement and produce of it, do unanimoufly declare, that the crops of grain from Chalkdell Field have not for thefe laft fourteen years been much, if any, above half what they were the fourteen years immediately preceding, notwith-bers of years paft, and the famine ftanding the late improvements in bufbandry; and this is entirely owing, as they all agree, to ftripping the land of the ftones. Nor is it Chalkdell Field alone that has materially fuffered 'n that county by the above-mentioned practice; on the contrary, the oldeft and moft experienced farmers in the parishes of Gravely, Stevenage, &c. fome of whom have been well acquainted with farming for upwards of thirty or forty years, and have in general lived always on the fpot, do declare and fay, they are ready to atteft it upon oath if called upon, that feveral thoufand acres bordering on the turnpike-road from Welwyn to Baldock, in Herts, have been fo much impoverished by having the ftones frequently taken away, that they are not now fo good as they would have been had the ftones been left upon the land, fome by one-fourth, fome by one-fifth, fome more, fome lefs, of their whole prefent value. But that all in general have been materially damaged, fo that the lofs to the inheritance for ever in the aforefaid lands, must be computed at a great many thousand pounds; to fay nothing of what the public has fuffered in the deficiency of the crops of grain.

But it may be asked, If the damage by taking away the ftones be fo great as i reprefent, how

of thoufands of ftarving poor an fwer thefe queftions. I am tho roughly convinced that the high price of grain has been the prin cipal reafon, and a dreadful reafon it is, why none of thefe has generally happened; and any one who knows the progrefs of trade for thirty or forty years paft, and the different value of money in that period, may form to himfelf other concurrent circumstances. What puts it beyond doubt that this prodigious impoverishing of the land is owing to no other caufe whatfoever, but picking and carrying away the ftones, is, that thofe lands have generally been most impoverished which have been moft frequently picked; and fo on in proportion. Nay, I know a field, part of which was picked, and the other part plowed up be fore they had time to pick it: the part that was picked loft feven or eight parts in ten of two fucceeding crops of grain, though the whole field was manured and managed in all refpects alike.What proves inconteftibly that this almost incredible damage was owing folely to picking the ftones, is, it went to an inch as far as they were picked, and no further.

I fhall mention but one inftance more at prefent. A gentleman in the neighbourhood of Poulton, in Lancafhire, who farmed a part of his eftate, ordered the frones,

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