810 THE PEOPLE'S FARM AND STOCK CYCLOPEDIA. 



Saving of Land. It is claimed that the same amount of 

 land required to pasture one animal will produce food enough 

 for three or more if the food is cut and taken to them. This 

 would not, perhaps, be true if grass only was depended upon 

 for food, but even with this the difference would be largely in 

 favor of soiling, as much of the grass is injured by the tramp- 

 ing of the stock, by their lying down on it, and soiling it by 

 their droppings, liquid and solid, and the heavier the growth 

 the greater will be the waste. 



Under the soiling system the farmer does not depend on 

 grass alone, but can grow other succulent crops, and often two 

 or more on the same land in a season. Mr. Peer, in his book on 

 soiling, illustrates the saving of land by increasing the amount 

 of stock it will carry, and the increased productiveness which 

 the manure from the stock will give, thus : " As in a crowded 

 city they add to the capacity of their houses and factories by 

 building up story above story, so the farmers of the older 

 countries have been obliged to build up their soil, till they have 

 farms two, three, or four stories high; that is to say, they have 

 increased the productiveness of the soil until one acre is made 

 to produce what formerly required three or four." 



I here give the testimony, on this point, of farmers who 

 have practiced soiling. 



Hon. Josiah Quincy, who was the first advocate of soiling in 

 this country, wrote on this subject in 1820 : " My experiment 

 has resulted in relation to the amount of land required in this: 

 I have kept the same amount of stock by soiling on seventeen 

 acres of land which had always previously required fifty." 

 Over twenty-five years later he retired from public life and 

 again took charge of his farm, and began again the system of 

 soiling, and followed it for ten years, and in 1857, after an ex- 

 perience in all of eighteen years, he wrote : " Since 1847 I have 

 kept from thirty to thirty-five head of milch cows in this way, 

 and have realized every one of the advantages claimed for the 

 system by European writers." As to saving of land, one acre 

 soiled will produce as much as three acres pastured. Some Eu- 

 ropean writers assert the benefit is equal to one to seven this 



