YALE AGRICULTURAL LECTURES. 95 



though they were fearful of breaking it. The horse-fork is 

 also a labor-saving instrument ; it also avoids the very disa 

 greeable work of unloading hay in a hot day and in a close 

 barn. 



But the great advantage of the soiling system is, it saves 

 manure. It economizes food, it is true, and keeps cattle in 

 better condition, but its chief excellence consists in the amount 

 of manure it will make. The solid manure from each animal, 

 kept up the year round, will average three and a half cords a 

 year ; this, with the liquid manure composted, as it ought to 

 be, with muck, will make twenty cords, of a value equal to 

 that usually carted out from a farmer's barn-yard. Four or 

 five hundred cords of muck are annually dug out on his farm, 

 and left exposed to the weather in winter. This is used, when 

 dry, to put behind the cattle in a trench made for the purpose. 

 After it is saturated, it is removed to. a cellar below, where it 

 would be worked over by the pigs were it not too miry for 

 them to work in. This makes, in the course of a year, a vast 

 pile of manure ; so much, indeed, as to remind one of the 

 Augean stables of antiquity, and to seem to require the ser 

 vices of a second Hercules for its removal. The soiling system 

 is almost universally adopted in Europe ; it may not be practi 

 cable here, except on a large scale, though almost every farmer 

 can use it to help him through the drouths of our summers. 

 In case the drouth does not come, his crops, which he has 

 planted for soiling, can be cut and made into fodder for 

 winter use. The supply of milk, under the soiling system, is 

 much more regular, because the cows are regularly fed, regu 

 larly attended, and fed always with the same kind of food. 

 For soiling, sow winter rye, to be cut early in the spring, and 

 in the spring sow oats or barley every ten days, so as to have 

 a regular supply in just the right season, that is, when the 

 plant is in its milk. Indian corn is also a good crop for later 

 use. 



Mr. Quincy here spoke of seeding down land to grass. He 



