NORFOLK SOCIETY. 455 



348 of that publication. In the year 1822, 1 gave up the direct 

 management of my farm and leased it, from considerations 

 wholly independent of any dissatisfaction with this practice or 

 its results. 



From that time, being occupied in various public offices in 

 Boston and its vicinity, I exercised no superintendence of my 

 farm for about twenty-five years. Resuming its management 

 in 1847, I immediately returned to the practice of " soiling,'' 

 resorted to the essays I had formerly published, to revive my 

 knowledge on the subject, and from that time to the present 

 have persevered in the practice with such entire satisfaction 

 that no consideration would induce me to adopt any other. 

 Since 1847, I have kept from thirty to thirty-five head of milch 

 cows in this way, so that, in my mind, my experience is con- 

 clusive on the subject. 



Every one of the advantages above stated, as being main- 

 tained by European writers, I have realized. 



1. As to saving of land. One acre " soiled from," will 

 produce as much as three acres pastured. This is enough, 

 although some European writers assert the benefit is equal to 

 one to seven. This great difference arising from the mode 

 in which the one acre is cultivated and enriched for succulent 

 products. 



2. As to saving of fencing. It renders all interior fences 

 useless. It enables the plough to pass through any length of 

 land without turning, and saves all waste from headland?, 

 which on each side of fences are usually the receptacles of 

 unsightly and noxious weeds. 



3. As to economy of food. Cattle will eat in the stall what 

 they will reject in the field. They tread down and injure in 

 the pasture, by dung or by stale, grass as good and almost in 

 equal quantities with that which they consume, and by their 

 feet injure its present product and future productive power. 



4. As to the better condition and greater comfort of the 

 cattle. In the stall they are supplied every day, five or six 

 times, with food given regularly in sufficient quantity. And 

 previous preparation having been made, they can never fail, 

 let the season be what it will, of always having the best food 

 and enough. When kept in the pasture they are left to their 

 own care, subject to various accidents, to the ill effects pro- 



