170 SOILING OF CATTLE. 



The proportion of valuable manure that the Careful 

 husbantJMuui may provide by this system of management 

 is scarcely to be conceived. 



The whole supply of food for the da)"^, can be cut and 

 carried to the barn in the morning-. A light hand-cart, 

 or wheelbarrow, will be found convenient for bringing 

 in the grass from the parts of the field nearest the barn ; 

 and a horse-cart, from those most distant. Double 

 siieds, in which a sufficient space is left before the cattle, 

 for the feeder to go with a large wheelbarrow to dis- 

 tribute their food, are, perhaps, the best constructions 

 for feeding houses ; being not only most commodious, 

 but less building will be required for the same number 

 of cattle, than by having them all to face one way. 

 The food is distributed, under cover, about six times 

 a day, in due proportions, which the usual practical 

 knowledge of a farmer will easily regulate. 



Mr. Qiiincy has kept for several years the same 

 amount of stock, by soiling, on seventeen acres of land, 

 though not in high tilth, which had always previously 

 required fifty acres. But he advises the farmer to keep 

 on hand, a month or six weeks stock of hay or other 

 food ; so as to have assurance that his cattle should not 

 suffer by drought, or any other untoward accident of 

 season. A mixture of dry food with the succulent, is 

 very conducive to the health of the animals soiled, and 

 enables the feeder to check the too great looseness of 

 the bowels ; often the effect of high feeding upon juicy 

 vegetables. 



It has been observed, that those cows which have 

 been always used to be kept by soiling, during the grow- 

 ing season, are usually more profitable than those which 

 have been newly put to this method of keeping. 



The practice of soiling cannot, of course, be advisa- 

 ble to that class of agriculturalists, whose farms contain 

 tracts of land suitable for nothing else than pasturage, 

 but to that class, whose farms are small, and who are 

 stimulated by that correct ambition of possessing a little 

 land highly cultivated, rather than a great deal misera- 

 bly managed ; to that class, also, whose entire farms are 

 capable of being tilled or mown — where fencing stuff is 

 dear — where grass is of great value — where cultivation 

 is carried to great perfection — where population is dense 



