394 HOW TO MAKE THE FARM PAY. 



poor.' Better keep ten head only, and keep them well shel- 

 tered and well fed, than one hundred in this shiftless, cruel way. 

 It will be profitable, while on every ill-kept animal you will 

 lose money, and the manure of the animals thus fed will be 

 worth bui little more than so much clay." 



Stall Feeding. For milk cows and fattening stock, stall 

 feeding the year around is certainly advisable. The experience 

 of every stock raiser who has ever given it a trial testifies that 

 the pi'ofit is at least double. There is no doubt of it. If we 

 could persuade every stock owner to adopt this soiling system, 

 we should feel that we had done as much for our country as 

 Fulton, Eli Whitney, or Blias Howe. It would increase the 

 agricultural wealth of the country in a tenfold ratio. It would 

 in five years pay the whole national debt. It is the only true 

 economy in stock raising. In our soiling system we include 

 stall feeding, cutting and steaming food, and the husbanding of 

 manures. Its advantages are first, A saving IN fences. All 

 the fences required (and all there ever ought to be on any farm) 

 will be a good-sized yard to exercise them in. Now a man 

 having one hundred and fifty acres of pasture often divides it 

 into six lots. To fence these lots costs not less than one thou- 

 sand dollars; the interest and repairs on which every year will 

 be sufficient to pay a man for doing all the extra work of soil- 

 ing fifty head of cattle. Can't you invest your one thousand 

 to better advantage. Again, each of these fences takes up land. 

 Your one thousand dollars worth of fence takes up from three 

 to four acres of land, A second consideration is the saving of 

 land. Four acres each, or twelve head to fifty acres of land, are 

 required by the pasturing system, and often six acres each, or 

 only eight head to fifty acres. Put this fifty acres under culti- 

 vation, and it will keep twenty-four head as well, yes, better 

 than it now keeps eight or twelve. We have already seen that 



