other kinds of green food; consequently it could do the young ones no harm, should they please to eat any of it; and as it has been incontrovertibly proved that cows improve greatly in the quality of their milk by feeding partially on gorse, it seems quite in reason to conclude that the brood mare would also improve in the same particular; so here again the sucking foal would not suffer, but be benefited by its forming a part of the nutriment of the dam in lieu of a portion of her hay..

In writing this article I do not, as I usually do, write from my own experience, but on that of men whose names, if mentioned, would carry greater confidence in their representations and judgment than my own. could do.

I am told that the flesh of cattle fed on gorse becomes firm to the touch in an extraordinary degree. Now let me feel a horse in the dark, I think I may without hesitation say, I will tell you in what state of condition he is; nay, more-how he has been fed. We can judge pretty accurately of the backwardness or forwardness of a race-horse's condition by the feel; in some instances I should say more by the feel without seeing him than by the looking at him without the feel. We might be deceived in two ways in the latter case in point of form he might look well enough; he may apparently have enough, and not too much flesh on him; but it is the feel that tells us whether the flesh is of the right sort. A horse may be drawn quite fine enough to run, yet may not have been so drawn fine by the right process, in which case he is only thin, and his flesh, that is what he has on him, may feel soft and comparatively flabby, instead of firm to the touch, and springing up behind and before the hand as it passes over it. Again, a horse (particularly a young one) may appear somewhat higher in flesh than race-horses usually are when near their time of running of the propriety of this the trainer alone can decide, but any good judge of condition will tell how far as a horse his state is perfect; in a general way, if a horse feels well, or rather his flesh feels well to the touch, there is not much the matter.

I have digressed somewhat, but have done done so to show that, if an animal becomes firmer in flesh from the partial consumption of gorse, gorse cannot be a very bad thing for him to consume. We are all aware how far prejudice influences men, very frequently to their all but ruin; a man would certainly be a focl to believe that cattle in any country could be nourished on sea-sand; but if he had it from indisputable authority that in certain places they throve and did well on seaweed, and he had plenty of it at command for the mere collecting, he would show equal folly in not giving it a trial, unpromising as I grant would be the experiment.

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I am informed that gorse may be advantageously grown on any scription of soil but that of a strong yellow clay, which in fact will grow nothing but (figuratively speaking) a brick. A rich loamy soil is quite uncalled for it will grow on those poor soils where nothing else will; still it will flourish to greater extent on somewhat better, yet still of so mediocre a character, as not to command any price worth naming, for other purposes. We will say land abundantly good for the growth of furze or gorse is to be had for ten shillings per acre: this land, growing, say, only ten tons per acre, gives a growth of forage at one shilling per ton; and I am told that, including first cost of seed or planting, the afterwards annual cutting, carrying home, bruising, and every incidental

expense, we can have it in a fit state to give cattle, at very considerably under one penny per hundred weight. About thirty pounds' weight with straw and hay chaff is something like a proper quantity for each beast per day and night, being less than one-third of a penny per head of cattle. Persons may be incredulous that a ton of nourishing fodder can be grown for less than twenty pence; their incredulity will be somewhat abated when they consider the worth, or rather comparative worthlessness of the land on which gorse will grow, the seed costing, say, ten shillings per acre; that this one sowing will last, say, seven years without deterioration; that once properly sown on proper soil, there is no chance of bad crops; that no weather materially affects it, that no manure is required to keep up its growth; and finally there is no fear of a bad gorse season as there is of one for hay, the gorse not requiring to be cut at any particular time. These circumstances considered, and these stated casulties avoided, alone account for the great difference between the cost of any given quantity of gorse, and that of any other known green food.

I have said it need not be cut at once, but is always at hand for use as wanted. It may be said, so are turnips, rape, clover, vetches, lucern, &c.; granted they are so for a time, and that with some of those mentioned but a very short one, while gorse is always ready, and possesses the further advantage that with what is not cut one time, the only difference that will be found by the difference of time would be, it would slightly, and very slightly, have advanced in its growth, but not sufficiently so to in any way to deteriorate its quality.

It will be observed I am in no way recommending the growing of gorse, or the giving it to the exclusion of other agricultural produce. It ís, I believe, quite necessary that other food should be given with it; for instance, I have said it acts on the bowels of all cattle as somewhat of an astringent, consequently a few turnips or other equally succulent food may at times be necessary, particularly when given to horses. I merely allude to its cultivation among other produce as an immense saving to the breeders and keepers of stock of any sort. The time may come when the agriculturist may find gorse a valuable article of produce to sell to his neighbours, if he has such who may not be able or disposed to cultivate it themselves. I say his neighbours only, not conceiving it probable from its nature it ever may become a constantly marketable commodity, from the circumstance of its great utility arising from its being cut in a green state, and given while fresh to cattle: its requiring bruising must ever militate greatly against its general use; and unless sent to market and sold by the bushel in such state, it would be next to useless to the purchaser. It is true that with the appliance of a block and mallet it may be brought into a state fit for consumption; but unless the bruising be complete, cattle will reject it, and the trouble of doing this would rarely permit of its being done in a satisfactory way by ordinary servants, who would set their face against it from this circumstances, and attribute its being refused to any cause but the true one.

But I have done all I contemplated doing in writing this article, namely, the calling or attempting to call the attention of the keepers of stock to the many inducements that present themselves in the cultivation and use of gorse. Those disposed to turn their attention to the subject can avail themselves of the experience of those more acquainted with the general details than is HARRY HIEOVER.

THE FIRST BARREL.

ENGRAVED BY J. OUTRIM, FROM A PAINTING BY A. Cooper, b.A.

What an essay a man might write on Abraham Cooper's pictures! How you see the sportsman breaking out in them all! Could any one have sketched such a scene as this, without he had known and felt it for himself? Look on that happy union of moor and loch-the setters' heads; the bird hard-hit-and the other hurrying away, toɔ ready to fancy he has escaped. If our R.A. was not as much at home with his gun as with his pencil, he could never have painted the shooter's life like this.

But it is this combination of the two arts that tells so much. The mere dead shot will pass over many a "bit" of moorland scenery, till he finds it again in one of Cooper's pictures; and then he recognizes its truth and beauty in the same breath. "I killed a bird just in such a way as that, only last season-right over the water; and old Nep had to fetch him out of it." And while the old dog was fetching him out of it, friend Abraham was sketching the scene in his mind's eye, or putting it yet more forcibly on the back of a letter.

"Make-believe," in field-sports, will not do, talk we ever so grandly. Mr. Cooper's success must owe no little of its permanence to the fact of he himself feeling a real pleasure in what he depicts. There is no make-believe here. He has visited each spot, experienced every incident he tells us over again so charmingly on his canvas. No wonder his works sell for ever, or our subscribers never tire of his studies. He has rarely made a happier one than "The First Barrel."

The first blow is half the battle; and had he missed his opening shot, the odds are, his day's work would have been but a bad one. The bird, however, is fairly hit; and his second barrel has all the confidence of a good precedent to go on.

PLOVER SHOOTING.

BY AUCEPS.

Under the above head I must enumerate a large family, in following up my subsequent observations. Among others, I must commence with the stone curlew (Charadrius ædicnemus), so named and characterized by naturalists from the circumstance of this bird's legs being thicker and more clumsily formed than any other proportionate parts of its body. It may be classified as the "gouty plover"-a term admirably applicable to it. I have found packs of this species of the Charadrius order in turnip fields, during the months of June and July. The curlew emits a loud, harsh note, that may be distinguished some distance off, and the same cannot be mistaken for that of any other of the