SOILING. 329 



nights become frosty, never let them remain out; be particular to 

 stable them; and in the morning never turn them out on the pas- 

 ture until the frost is melted off by the sun, as nothing, perhaps, 

 dries a cow, or reduces her milk, more than eating grass with the 

 frost on. To many of these requirements, the generality of 

 farmers pay no attention whatever. In the early season, as 

 soon as there is any pasture whatever, the cow is turned out of 

 the barnyard to eat what she may find, and to remain day and 

 night until the winter comes. There is nothing grown or fed to 

 eke out the scanty supply of pasturage that almost invariably 

 occurs at some time in each season.' " 



Although the writer, in these last two paragraphs, has ex- 

 pressed nearly the same views which we have elsewhere given, 

 they are recorded as strongly fortifying our own. 



In this somewhat elaborate, and in some of its necessary 

 incidental duties, repeated discussion of the benefits of soil- 

 ing, we do not anticipate an immediate revolution, or indeed, 

 any great degree of reform in the long practiced methods of cat- 

 tle keeping, in this country of comparatively cheap land and dear 

 labor excepting, possibly, the feeding of milk cows. Yet it is a 

 subject deeply concerning the economy of our cattle husbandry 

 throughout. A snug, compact system, widely different from the 

 too generally loose way of managing stock, must be adopted in 

 order to carry it out. Our smaller stock farmers will probably 

 be the first to adopt it, and it will ultimately, to a considerable 

 extent, be adopted by the larger ones as their land becomes more 

 valuable, and its advantages become better understood. Those 

 living immediately contiguous to the larger towns and cities, must 

 adopt it of necessity; the large dairies will follow; then the 

 stall-feeders ; and ultimately a great many of the stock breeders, 

 and graziers, will fall into it from a sheer conviction of its advan- 

 tages. The farmers inhabiting the wide pastoral regions of the 

 far West, will be slow in coming into a plan requiring so much 

 of system, of close calculation, but no long cycle of years will 



