SOILING CROPS. 5 



for a part of the season, as occasion may require. 

 Such food may be given once a day or oftener, 

 according to the needs of the animals. The chief 

 object sought in partial soiling is to keep domestic 

 animals abundantly supplied with palatable and 

 nutritious food, when the food from the pastures is 

 inadequate. And where milk production is involved 

 it aims to furnish succulent food after the grass pas- 

 tures have lost much of their succulence, even though 

 they should still be abundant. Partial soiling is best 

 adapted to a system of cultivation that is intermediate 

 between the extensive and intensive systems ; that is 

 to say, to a system that meets the needs of the average 

 arable farm. In all countries with summer climates 

 deficient in moisture it is an essential appendage and 

 material help to dairying. In no other way can the 

 dairyman keep up a maximum milk flow at so small 

 an outlay. 



Complete soiling has reference to that system 

 by which domestic animals are sustained on food fed 

 to them in the stall, the feed lot, or the paddock dur- 

 ing all the year. It does not imply that all the food 

 so fed shall be given to the animals in the green form, 

 but that green food will usually form a considerable 

 portion, if not, indeed, the greater part, of the ration. 

 Complete soiling is adapted to an intensive system 

 of cultivation ; that is to say, where cultivable lands 

 are scarce and dear, and from which it is necessary 

 to obtain a maximum yield while they are being 

 tilled. Its general adoption in this country where 

 land is so plentiful, and in which it is relatively so 

 cheap, is probably remote rather than near, notwith- 

 standing that it has been practiced in some sections 



