MAKING A LIVING WHERE AND HOW 5 



Although we can feed a cow on less than an acre by raising 

 forage crops, she needs to be milked every day at regular 

 hours, and the milk, as well as the cans and the cow, need to 

 be cared for and she cannot wait. 



The stock-raiser has a different proposition ; he needs fields 

 and grass ; but if time and available labor is limited, we had 

 better specialize on the garden unlike the farmers. 



The farmers are not to blame that they do not usually cul- 

 tivate the land intelligently. They are mostly cut off from 

 the educational advantages of the cities by distance and by 

 bad roads. 



Usually, that is because, desirable land being held at spec- 

 ulative prices, they are forced to places where the farm itself 

 is worth less than the good improvements on it cost. Some- 

 times it is because, also, the land is poor or worn out ; more 

 often because it is thoughtlessly managed, nearly always be- 

 cause the land-hungry farmer has taken ten times as much 

 land as he needs for farming. In the hope of a rise that 

 often does not come, nearly all have bought more land than 

 they can take good care of with limited capital and scarcity 

 of help. 



trial in soiling dairy cows for a number of years past, and finds that 

 complete soiling is entirely practicable, i.e. that green foliage crops 

 may serve as the sole food of the dairy herd, aside from the grain 

 ration, without injury to the animals and with a considerable sav- 

 ing in the cost of milk. 



"Under the soiling system a large number of animals can be 

 kept upon a given acreage, and by allowing open-air exercises in 

 a large yard or pasture the practice has been demonstrated as en- 

 tirely feasible for dairy animals. 



" One acre of soiling crops produced sufficient fodder for an equiv- 

 alent of 3 cows for six months. Rye, corn, crimson clover, 

 alfalfa, oats and peas, and millets have been found to furnish food 

 more economically than any other green crops in that locality. A 

 grain ration was always fed in addition to the soiling crops." 



