SOILING, ENSILAGE, AND STABLE 

 CONSTRUCTION. 



CHAPTER I. 

 OUR SOILS. 



THE great problem of feeding and clothing the 

 millions depends upon the success of agriculture. 

 The day has gone by, in the Eastern States at least, 

 when a man can "farm it," because he does not 

 know enough to do anything else. There is no 

 business or profession in which a man is obliged to 

 have such a diversity of knowledge as in farming. 

 Every day brings him face to face with widely dif- 

 ferent questions. There are his cows, their man- 

 agement, breeding, care, feeding, the disposal of 

 their product. Likewise his sheep, horses, swine, 

 poultry, bees. Then there are his fruit trees, dif- 

 ferent varieties, requiring special care and attention, 

 and special knowledge. There is, as I said before, 

 not a trade or profession requiring such a widely di- 

 versified knowledge as general farming. 



Our predecessors who, through ignorance, robbed 

 the soil of its fertility, left us little in these days of 

 keen competition but a legacy of unprofitable labor. 

 We ought to profit by their mistakes, and find some 

 way, if possible, to make our land more productive. 

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