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The result of this is, that few cattle comparatively can besaid to be fattened wholly on pasture, or with the assistanceof hay, the produce of a part of the same land, as in England.The pastures in Scotland are most generally and profitably em-ployed, either in preparing cattle for being fattened in win-ter, or in finishing them for the butcher in the early part ofsummer.
It may be proper, under this head, to notice another me-thod of fattening on grass, which has been attempted in a fewinstances, viz. by feeding on cut grass or soiling. It hasbeen long the practice in Scotland , to feed farm-horses, andoccasionally milcli cows in this way; and it was thought thatcattle might be reared and fattened by the same means.
The practice of soiling young cattle is said to have beenlong followed in Berwickshire, but is now abandoned, froman idea of its insufficiency to raise stock to the same weightand size, as they -would have been raised to, had they beengrazed in the common manner *. From young to fatteningcattle, the transition was easy and natural; but it does notappear that this mode of fattening cattle was ever attemptedin that county, or at least persisted in, and now, “ the soil-ing of cattle is not in use there f.”
Several experiments, however, have been made to fattencattle by soiling; but they are not so numerous, nor havethey been conducted with such accuracy as to lead to anvcertain conclusions. There is reason to suspect that the cat-tle make comparatively little improvement after the monthof July J.—It may just be noticed, that the object of a far-mer, in all cases, is to obtain the greatest return in moneyfrom his produce, whether it can be carried to market in its
* Sir John Sinclair’s Husbandry of Scotland , 1st edit. p. 357.t Berwickshire Report, p. 385.
1 See Brown’s Treatise on Rural Affairs, vol. ii, p. 163 ; for an account ofan experiment in soiling, which seems to have been conducted with much at-tention and accuracy.
VOL. III.
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