SECRETARY'S REPORT. 223 



kept an accurate account of all the labor of cutting the food in the 

 field, bringing it into the barn, cutting it up there, cutting salt hay 

 or straw to mix with it, mixing this food and delivering it to the cattle* 

 and found that it amounted to one hundred and forty eight days' labor. 

 This estimated at a dollar the day, adding fifteen dollars paid in the 

 month of June, makes the whole expense one hundred and sixty- 

 three dollars. The manure at the end of the soiling season, certainly 

 eo^ualled one hundred and twenty loads ; and could not have been 

 bought and brought there, for three hundred dollars." 



Adam Anthony says, " The cows go to pasture for a slight pick- 

 ing, for water and exercise, morning and evening. Their summer 

 feed at the barn, is rye from early in May, succeeded by clover, 

 millet and corn. By supplying the stables with peat and muck, 

 three hundred cords of excellent manure are annually made by the 

 stock." In a former quotation from this gentleman, it will be seen 

 that his stock is given as about forty head. 



Soiling is practiced by the Shakers at New Lebanon, N. Y., and 

 they claim that the superior quantity and quality of the manure is 

 sufficient to defray all the extra expense of cutting and feeding. It 

 is all saved, and being preserved under cover, is of great strength 

 and energy. 



I find abundance of testimony to the effect, that by soiling, the 

 quantity of manure is more than doubled, upon the same stock. 



Quincy says, " It may be adopted as a general axiom, that soiling 

 is the cheapest of all modes of obtaining manures. In this point of 

 view, the saving of fence, the economy of land, of food, the increase 

 of milk, and the better condition of cattle, may be considered as 

 incidental to the system, as an offset for the labor requisite; givino- 

 the manure made as a clear gain ; and what is more, without the 

 loss and trouble and expense of carting from a distance." 



From the benefits reasonably expected to accrue through the 

 adoption of the soiling system, by reason of the vast increase of 

 manure, I urge its claims upon the farmers of Maine, as a practica- 

 ble process, at once cheap and easy, within the resources of every 

 one, sure to supply the great and universal want, (manure,) and 

 leading directly to a higher and more satisfactory condition of hus- 

 bandry. 



I urge the claims of the system, through the conviction, based on 

 my own exprience, that our soil and climate are as well adapted to 



