820 THE PEOPLE'S FARM AND STOCK CYCLOPEDIA. 



may be grown to feed with the corn. The millets grow rapidly 

 and yield abundantly, but the ground must be well prepared, or 

 the young plant will not make a thrifty start, and will be likely 

 to become choked with weeds. Sorghum, when grown for soil- 

 ing, should be drilled very thick to prevent the stalks from be- 

 coming too hard. 



In all soiling it will be found profitable to provide as great 

 a variety of food as possible, and by a little care one can usually 

 have two or more kinds on hand at once. When this is done,, 

 cows can be kept up to a full flow of milk, or the stock be 

 made to gain in flesh on the green crops alone; but when such 

 food as immature corn-fodder is fed, it will be found profitable 

 to give a few quarts of bran, or a pound or two of linseed or 

 cotton-seed-meal daily, to each animal, as it will pay in the im- 

 proved condition of the stock and the increased value of the 

 manure. 



It is best to feed frequently and a small quantity at a time ; 

 for if a large quantity of food is given at once, much will be 

 wasted, as an animal will, though hungry, reject food which it 

 has breathed upon and nosed over. If any food remains before 

 the cattle after they have done eating, it is better to throw it out 

 in the barn-yard or to the hogs. The stock should be fed five 

 times a day, and the food for the two morning feeds, five and eight 

 o'clock, should be brought in the night before, as it is not best 

 to cut when the dew is on. They should be fed again at noon, 

 at four o'clock, and at seven. One will soon learn how much 

 to give, which should always be only what they will eat clean. 



Double-cropping in Soiling. One great advantage of 

 the soiling system is, that it enables the farmer to grow two 

 crops in a season on much of his land, and furnishes so much 

 manure that this can be done without injury to the soil. The 

 land on which the rye is grown can be planted in sweet- 

 corn, and the same is true of the clover. Millet may be sown 

 after either of these crops, or it or corn after the oats. Where 

 beets are grown, as I recommend in the chapter on hogs, alternate 

 rows can first be fed, and corn drilled, and the remaining rows 

 of beets fed out before the corn is large enough to need the 



