SOILING. 



SOLANINE. 



660 



and placed in opposite scales of a balance, and poised. The apparatus 

 is exposed to a moist atmosphere out of doors, or iri a cellar, and occa- 

 sionally examined. That which is heaviest is, in general, the most 

 fertile. 



It is often useful to ascertain roughly the composition of a soil, 

 without having time or opportunity to make accurate experiments. A 

 graduated glass tube, which can be carried in the pocket, and a small 

 phial with a ground stopper, containing diluted muriatic acid, and 

 .secured in a wooden case for fear of accident, is all the apparatus 

 required. A little of the soil is taken and moistened with water ; a 

 few drops of the acid are poured on ; and by the greater or less dis- 

 engagement of bubbles the proportion of calcareous matter is guessed 

 at, and it* presence proved. The soil mixed with water is poured 

 into the glass tube and well shaken. In a few minutes the coarse 

 sand is deposited : shortly after the finer sand, and, lastly, the clay and 

 impalpable matter, of which the lightest remains longest suspended. 

 Distinct rings can be observed in the deposits, and the graduated tube 

 shows their proportion. A person accustomed to this method will 

 guess with great precision the general qualities of the soil ; and when 

 the geological structure of the neighbourhood and the nature of the 

 subsoil are taken into consideration, the value of the land for pasture 

 or cultivation is guessed with little danger of making very glaring 

 mistakes. To surveyors and valuers this method is of very great help, 

 when other means are not at hand. Among the properties of soils of 

 the greatest agricultural importance must be named the absorptive 

 powers which they possess over ammoniacal and other valuable in- 

 gredients of manures, either volatile or soluble, which would otherwise 

 be wasted when applied to the land This fact, first observed by Mr. 

 Thompson, M.P., has since been investigated by Professor Way, and 

 explains the economy of autumnal manurings and top-dressings in the 

 winter season, when vegetation is inactive and unable at once to turn 

 to account artificial stores of food for plants. 



In practice, soils are usually divided into light, mellow, and stiff; 

 but this gives very little information, there being every imaginable 

 variety in each of these. There are still minute circumstances which 

 produce great fertility or the reverse, and which it is difficult to 

 investigate. An accurate chemical analysis, which, however, is a process 

 requiring the service of the educated chemist, joined to a careful 

 mechanical examination, and very correct accounts of the average 

 produce under different systems of cultivation, can alone give us a 

 scale according to which the natural fertility of different soils can be 

 classed ; and this must be the work of time and industry joined to 

 .science and practical knowledge. Directed as it is to the detection and 

 estimation of ingredients, many of which occur in very small pro- 

 portion, the process of chemical analysis is one which cannot be 

 undertaken by the farmer. It is sometimes useful to him, however, to 

 know the exact composition of his soil, and the chemist is thus some- 

 times able to point out the causes of infertility, and so enable him to 

 remove them. When, therefore, he is at a loss, such an analysis 

 may be the guide he needs ; and in a deficiency of phosphate of lime, 

 or an excess of chloride of sodium, or a deficiency of organic matter, 

 or ill the presence of iron salt which is thus detected, he may read the 

 cause of his failure, and so be able to remove it. 



SOILING is the name given in agriculture to the mode of feeding 

 hones and cattle in the stable or yards with food brought to them as 

 it a cut in the meadows or fields. The great advantage of soiling 

 cattle is the increase of manure of the best quality, which is thereby 

 produced ; and this circumstance alone can counterbalance the great 

 trouble and expense incurred in cutting and carry ing all the green food 

 from a distance to the farmyard. 



The system of soiling is not very generally adopted in British 

 husbandry, it being so much easier to allow the cattle to crop their 

 food in the pastures ; but in those countries where property in land is 

 greatly subdivided, and where farms are small and good pastures 

 scarce, as in Flanders, France, and Switzerland, especially where the 

 vineyards render manure scarce and dear by taking a considerable 

 portion of it and returning none, there the soiling of cattle is almost 

 a matter of necessity. A cow or ox requires from two to three acres 

 of pasture or meadow to feed it all the year round, allowing a portion 

 for hay. But by raising clover, lucern, sainfoin, tares, and other green 

 crops, one or two cows can be fed with the produce of one acre, espe- 

 cially if a portion is in mangold wurzel or other succulent roots. Thus 

 the straw of the white crops is converted into excellent manure, and 

 the land kept in a state of fertility. 



In proportion as a farm is larger in extent, so the expense of soiling 

 increases, both from the distance of the fields where the green crops 

 grow, and from the same'distance to which the dung has to be carted. 

 There is a limit therefore to the soiling system, unless there be 

 many yards or stables in different parts of a farm, so as to sub- 

 divide it, and make each yard the centre of a distinct system of soil- 

 ing, with fields near at hand for the green crops. In almost every 

 experiment on a large scale it has been found that soiling was only 

 a certain mode of purchasing dung, and that it often was more 

 expensive to procure it in this way than to send to a considerable 

 distance to purchase it in towns. Where it cannot be purchased at 

 all, there are no other means, in many situations, of producing a 

 sufficient quantity ; and the trouble and expense of soiling must be 

 submitted to. In almost every case where sheep can be folded to feed 



off the crops, the soiling of cattle is a loss, because the sheep pay some- 

 thing for their food ; the cattle in the stall do so less frequently. 



But there are animals which must be fed for the work of the farm, 

 such as horses or oxen ; and these are much more profitably and 

 economically fed by soiling than by any other means. A horse or 

 ox, if he works eight or ten hours, has no time for rest if he has 

 to crop his food from a short pasture, however sweet; whereas au 

 abundant supply of clover, luceru, or tares enables him to take a hearty 

 meal and lie down to rest. He wants no corn with this food, and does 

 his work without losing flesh or activity. 



There is nothing easier in a mild climate, and especially a moist one, 

 like Britain or Ireland, than to have a succession of green food from 

 the beginning of spring to the end of autumu, and afterwards a suc- 

 cession of succulent vegetable food through the winter. Rye and 

 winter barley, sown early in autumn, will be ready to cut as soon as 

 the mild weather of spring commences ; some sown later with winter 

 tares, and the young clover, which has not been cropped in autumn, 

 will succeed. After this come artificial grasses, as Italian rye-grass 

 and the grass of water-meadows mown early ; although this last is not 

 such hearty food for working cattle ; but when joined to a mixture of 

 oats and cut straw, their watery nature is corrected. Clover and spring 

 tares (when these last are sown at proper intervals), lucern and sain- 

 foin (if the soil is suited to them), will afford a constant and abundant 

 supply to the scythe which cuts the daily allowance. It is prudent to 

 provide against failure, and have more land in these crops than is 

 absolutely necessary, because the surplus can always be made into hay 

 or reserved to ripen its seed ; and these green crops, valuable as they 

 are, far from deteriorating the soil, clear it of weeds, and render it 

 more fit to bear corn afterwards. Turnips, carrots, and mangold 

 wurzel provide with hay and straw the winter food. And by steaming 

 the roots or pulping them, and so mixing with chaff of hay or straw, a 

 palatable and nutritious food may be provided at small expense. In 

 these cases soiling is profitable and economical. 



It is generally thought in those countries where the soiling system 

 is most universally adopted, that it is best to allow the green food to 

 remain twelve or twenty-four hours after it is cut, before it is given to 

 cattle. This may be prudent with cows and oxen, which are apt to eat 

 voraciously, and are subject to be hoven from the fermentation of 

 the green food in the paunch or rumen : but, excepting in the case of 

 young vetches, which are more physic than food, for horses there is 

 little danger ; and if the food is not wet with dew or rain, the fresher 

 it is eaten the better it will nourish the animal, and the more he will 

 relish it. 



If any one is desirous of calculating the expense of soiling any 

 number of beasts, he has only to reckon what time of men and horses 

 it will take to cut the food and carry it to the cattle, from the average 

 distance of the fields in which it can be raised in succession. Much 

 of their time is lost in th'e morning and evening in going backwards 

 and forwards from the field to the yard ; for there can scarcely be an 

 establishment so large as to keep them employed a whole day ; and 

 if there were, the fields must be so large and so distant, as to greatly 

 increase the expense of carriage. Not to enter into minute calcula- 

 tions, it is fully proved, that, to a certain extent, soiling is profitable 

 and economical, when it can be done before and after the usual hours 

 of labour ; but that when undertaken on a large scale in any one 

 locality, it is usually attended with loss, the manure produced being 

 purchased at too great a price. 



If a labourer who has an allotment of half an acre of good light 

 laud would devote it entirely to raise food for a cow, his wife and 

 children cutting the food and tending the cow in a small yard with a 

 shed, or in an airy cow-stall, he would find that he had a much greater 

 clear profit, than if he had sown his land every year with wheat, and 

 had always a good crop, which last supposition is improbable. Thure 

 would be no better stimulus to industry than to let a piece of land 

 for this purpose to every man who could purchase a cow and feed it by 

 soiling. 



SOL, in music, the name given, in sol-fa-ing, by the English, Italians, 

 and French to the fifth of the scale ; and by the two last also to the 

 sound called a by the Germans and English. [SOLMISATION.] 



SOLANINE, a vegetable alkaloid obtained by Desfosses from the 

 berries of the iolanum niyrum, and the fruit of the common potato. 



In appearance solanine resembles sulphate of quinine, but the 

 crystals are finer and shorter ; it restores the blue colour of litmus 

 when reddened by an acid ; dissolves in acids, and is precipitated from 

 them by the alkalies. The hydrochlorate and acetate of solanine have 

 a gummy appearance when evaporated to dryness, but the sulphate 

 and phosphate are crystallisable. It is extremely poisonous : a grain 

 of it, dissolved in dilute sulphuric acid, killed a rabbit in six hours. 

 The analyses which have been made of this alkaloid do not accord. 

 The following are the numbers obtained by Blanchet and 0. Henry 

 respectively. 



Blanchet. O. Henry. 



Hydrogen 8-9 9-14 



Carbon 62-0 75-00 



Oxygen ...... 27-5 12-78 



Azote . 1-0 3-08 



100-0 



100-00 



