INTENSIVE AND EXTENSIVE FARMING 



115. The soiling system. Keeping the greatest num- 

 ber of cows per acre. The farmer has been repeatedly 

 shown that he can keep more cows per acre by a soiling 

 system, that is, if green feed is cut and brought to the 

 cows, rather .than use a pasture, but few farmers have 

 adopted this method. The farmer is concerned with 

 profit for a year's work, not with entertaining the greatest 

 possible number of cows. A soiling system is feasible in 

 Europe, where labor is cheap and land very expensive ; 

 it is not feasible in America, except on a very few farms 

 with entirely unusual conditions. A description of one of 

 these farms, that has been published as a Farmers' Bulle- 

 tin, is in great demand. 1 



The farmer had 15 acres of land near a large city in 

 Pennsylvania and by a soiling system raised all the 

 roughage for 30 head of stock, 17 of which were cows in 

 milk. The milk was sold to a state institution two miles 

 from the farm at the wholesale price of 25 cents a gallon 

 the year around. This was at a time when farmers in 

 the state were usually getting about 8 to 12 cents a gallon. 

 The milk was unusually high in fat, but the price was 

 equivalent to 50 cents a pound for butter fat. The value 

 of the land is not given, but it was mortgaged for $480 

 per acre. At this time, good land for dairy purposes in 

 the state could have been bought for $50 and rarely sold 

 for as much as $100 per acre. With more than double the 

 usual price of milk and with land worth ten times as much 

 as that on most dairy farms, a soiling system was the only 

 logical system. The owner developed a city-lot type of 

 farming excellently adapted to his conditions, but absolutely 

 out of place on farms that sell milk at usual prices. If he 

 had sold his milk at usual prices, he would have lost money. 



1 U. S. Dept. Agr., Farmers' Bulletin 242. 



N 



