548 THE HOME, FARM AND BUSINESS CYCLOPAEDIA. 



wide, private lane tightened up, every cairn of stones and swamp corner 

 be greedily reclaimed, and every tree have its proper place on our farms- 



As an agent towards such an end, the comparatively new and little un- 

 derstood system of cattle management called "Soiling" will have much 

 to say ere long. 



To show this in the most practical shape is my present duty. I desire 

 distinctly to confine myself to the produce of certain crops used for this 

 purpose as against the prevailing summer management of cattle, we call 

 *" Grazing." It would be easy to bring in the important story of the use 

 of auxiliaries in both cases, but to do so would complicate and take from 

 the value of the comparison. Soiling, then, is the housing of cattle at all 

 seasons, and distinctively, in our circumstances, from the middle of April 

 to the middle of October, when all their food is taken to them from the 

 fields in place of their being allowed to search for themselves. 



First, what is our position in Ontario as cattle graziers ? We have not 

 yet secured the rich old pastures of England, rich as our soils are, because 

 we cannot secure variety enough of grasses (which means fifteen to twenty 

 kinds) to give a close bottom and offer that succession of herbage best for 

 the health and growth of animal life. Our droughts, and especially our 

 winters, are against this ; we have rain enough per annum, but it is not 

 distributed sufficiently to give the regular top-dressing so essential to con- 

 tinuous greenness. Here permit the remark that as we have ourselves 

 been the cause of this irregularity of rainfall, and temperature to a certain 

 extent, so it is left to us to make good the balancing of the things in na- 

 ture that have been displaced how and where the meteorologist and 

 arborculturist will explain by and by, for so sure as we are opening our- 

 selves to the world's public markets so sure are we bound to leave no 

 stone unturned in view of national eminence among them. 



On an average of seasons, on putting a cattle beast to the field, without 

 any grain or cut fodder helps, there is no going back, neither is then- 

 much progress in flesh making ; there is growth of bone and muscle, but 

 comparatively little finishing on the outside or inside. So then we can 

 make the frame in the field but not complete it for the home or foreign 

 market. In this respect, therefore, we cannot possibly compete at pre- 

 sent with some other parts of the world. What applies to beef making 

 applies to the making of milk. 



With unreliable pastures for continuous progress in beef or milk pro- 

 ductions, the question before us is how can we better ourselves ? We 

 have the soil, or soils, we have the indispensable sunshine, as also the ir- 

 regular showers, and all the essentials towards the upkeep of fertility. 



