Advantages of Soiling. 69 



experience agree, so far as I have been able to learn, 

 that the value of the manure made under this system, 

 when properly conducted, is worth at the very least 

 twice as much as that made while pasturing-, where 

 it destroys as much feed as its virtue enriches the 

 soil. A great part is lost by falling upon rocks, 

 among bushes, and in watercourses. It is evapor- 

 ated by the sun. But the saving of land, of fences, 

 of food, the better condition and greater comfort of 

 the farm stock, the increase in the production of 

 beef, milk, and butter, and the attainment of manure, 

 are all subservient and subordinate to the one prime 

 object and benefit to be derived from the system, i.e., 



THE INCREASED PRODUCTIVENESS OF THE SOIL. 



The first, greatest, and most important question 

 that can occupy the attention of Eastern farmers is, 

 in my opinion, how to restore the fertility of our 

 soils; and as to the Western farmer, how he may 

 preserve it. If the reasons already given here have 

 nothing in them of sufficient importance to induce 

 the farmer to adopt the soiling system, the fact that 

 it affords the surest and most economical way of in- 

 creasing the fertility of his soil should lead him to 

 give the system a fair and thorough trial. And, 

 again, to the farmer who wishes to add more acres 

 to those he already owns, the soiling system affords 

 a certain means of doing so without buying more 

 land. In my own experience, as already shown, 

 soiling has nearly doubled the acreage of my culti- 



