Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 73.djvu/412

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 In 1903 the grass field was mown twice and yielded 5$1⁄3$ tons of hay per acre in two cuttings. In 1904 one field yielded 4$1⁄2$tons per acre, the first cutting.

the truth of the proverb—"No grass, no cattle; no cattle, no manure; no manure, no crops"—had not been appreciated. Townsend's four course considered something more than supplying man with grain, a new point of view arose, and in regard to it Arthur Young said: "The grand article of all husbandry is the keeping great stocks of cattle; for without much cattle, there can not be much manure." Two out of the four crops, clover and turnips, and the straw from the grain crops were used for the live stock, either as food or as bedding and the result was a large supply of manure and increased productivity of the soil. The grain crops were separated either by an intertilled crop, turnips, or by a legume, clover. Substituting corn for turnips we have a rotation of equal value for the northern states.

The introduction of clover and turnips into England as field crops is coincident with the improvement of live stock by Bakewell. From this time on meat was added to the diet of the common people of Britain, in small but increasing quantities. It is worth noting the effect that the call for meat had upon the minds of the thinkers of two divisions of the Teutonic race. The English school—including Bakewell, Coke of Holkham, Booth, Bates and many others—set to work to so improve the conformation of their breeds of live stock that they should be capable of producing a pound of beef, mutton or milk more economically; while the German school, led by von Thaer, began the epoch-making research as to the influence of foods upon their live stock, their efforts being to make the foods produce meat more economically.