On Stall Feeding and Clover Cultivation in Switzerland

Urgent necessity knows no bounds, and often not even those that should prevent our obvious ruin. It is necessity, not reason, that sets the day for the start of the grazing season; the pitiful, half-starved livestock is driven out to the still-naked pasture, where, instead of sufficient nutrition, it tears down indigestible food from hedges and bushes and, penetrated by frost, rain, and biting winds, collects the substance for deadly diseases, which are later promoted to terrifying outbreaks by the sultry days of summer. Summer itself is then no less dangerous and burdensome to grazing livestock in other respects. How these poor animals are chased from morning until late at night in the most intense heat by mosquitoes, flies, horseflies, and so many other enemies! How often, overcome by exhaustion and burning thirst, they drink death for themselves at the nearest stinking puddle! Not infrequently, a honey-dew a sticky substance secreted by aphids, often leading to plant disease that suddenly appears on juicy and apparently harmless plants is a direct cause of epidemics that ruin the land.