74 Soiling. 



10,000 acres of land, nearly one and one-half head 

 for every acre farmed. 



The principal industry is the growing of early 

 potatoes for the English markets. On an eight-acre 

 farm will usually be found four or five acres of po- 

 tatoes (followed by a crop of roots the same season), 

 two acres of grass, and one of hay, oats, and a patch 

 of tree cabbage as a soiling crop for the pigs. Such 

 a farm will carry two to three horses, and seven to 

 ten head of cattle, besides pigs and poultry. 



All the cattle are soiled the year around except 

 the cows in milk, which are tethered, that is to say, 

 they are fastened by a rope or chain to an iron peg 

 driven in the ground. The tether is ten or twelve 

 feet in length. They begin at one end of a field, and 

 when they have mowed a swath clean the length of 

 their tether, they are moved on, and so along across 

 the field. By the time the field has been fed over 

 in this manner, it is ready to start again at the be- 

 ginning. A field is fed over five or six times dur- 

 ing a season. Of course, the land is very produc- 

 tive. Three hundred bushels of early partly grown 

 potatoes per acre is about the usual yield. This 

 little island, besides principally supporting this very 

 large population, exports annually of farm products 

 between $3,000,000 and $4,000,000. This 10,000 

 acres is only a good-sized Western farm. This 

 leads me to say that the Jersey farmers are the best 

 and most scientific agriculturists in the world. 

 They pay from $40 to $75 an acre annual rent for 

 their farms, and make a better living off of an eight- 



