CATTLE. 



Corn may be sown in drills or broadcast, the former method being usually considered the 

 most desirable. The drills should be about three feet apart, using about a bushel of good 

 seed to the acre. AVhen the ears reach the milk state, the fodder is in the best condition for 

 feeding; but it may be fed at any time after it has reached the height of three or four feet. 

 Clover is best cut in the blossom ; the same is true of most of the grasses and grains, as they 

 are then moist, nutritious, and full of sap. They can, however, be cut at any season when 

 necessary. They should always lie sufficiently long after cutting to become slightly wilted 

 before feeding. Care should be used not to feed too much clover at a time, or, in fact, any 

 green food. It is the practice of some to cut and mix one-fourth the quantity of cut hay or 

 straw with green clover before feeding. 



Methods of Soiling. The methods of soiling are various, being modified by the 

 feeder to suit different conditions and circumstances. As an illustration of this system, we 

 give the method recommended by Mr. &quot;Waring, as follows: 



&quot; Early in the autumn sow three acres of winter rye, to be cut from May fifteenth to 

 June fifteenth. Early in April, sow three acres of oats, to be cut from June fifteenth to July 

 first; sow in April two acres of oats or barley, to be cut from July first to July fifteenth; 

 early in May, two acres of oats or barley, to be cut from July fifteenth to August tenth; 

 middle of May, two acres of corn, to be cut from August tenth to September first; middle 

 of June, the three acres from which rye has been cut, to be sown with corn, to be cut from 

 September first until September twentieth; early in July, the first three acres sown with oats 

 should be resown with barley, to be cut from September twentieth until the harvest of roots 

 and cabbages furnish a stock of green refuse, which will suffice until winter feeding 

 commences.&quot; 



The plan as above makes an allowance of twelve acres for maintaining twelve cows, and 

 requires the cultivation of root crops aside from the regular operations of soiling. The roots 

 cultivated are not intended for feeding until winter, but the tops make excellent soiling 

 forage late in the fall. This is a larger allowance, on account of poor soil, than is commonly 

 made; but if the season be good the surplus may be ensilaged or dried for winter feeding, 

 while the large allowance provides against a possible drouth or any other unfavorable circum 

 stance that might reduce the ordinary quantity of food. In September three acres of the 

 four which were sown to oats or barley and corn may be sown to winter rye. This provides 

 for the early crop for soiling the next year. 



Mr. Quincy of Massachusetts, who was an earnest advocate of the system, and who 

 probably did more to popularize it than any other man in his day, who also practiced it with 

 great success upon his farm, states that he was enabled by soiling to keep thirty cows on the 

 product of seventeen acres of his land, but which under the old system required fifty acres. 

 This gentleman relied chiefly upon four kinds of green crops for carrying on the system, viz. : 

 grass, oats, Indian corn, and cabbage. Grass was depended upon for the first month of the 

 soiling season, it being cut from the earliest patches here and there about the farm buildings. 

 He gives as the result of his experience, that one acre of good clover is sufficient to sustain 

 six growing cattle from the twentieth of May to the twentieth of June. Oats were used for 

 soiling in July at the rate of one acre for every four cattle soiled. The oats were sown as 

 early as possible in the spring, and were generally sufficiently advanced to commence feeding 

 by the first of July. 



&quot;When oats are to be depended upon alone during this month, Mr. Quincy advises that 

 one-half the quantity sown be put in the ground a week or ten days later than the early seed 

 ing. Indian corn was used in the month of August. During September, grass from the 

 second crop was depended upon from those acres which supplied soiling material in the month 

 of June. He states that the grass from the second crop will generally enable the farmer to 

 carry on the soiling system to the fifteenth of October, if his grass land is in good condition. 



