80 THE dairyman's MANUAL. 



wakens into action by the influences of beat and moisture, 

 and controls the growth of the plant through a succes- 

 sion of changes until it dies and leaves again a seed. 

 What it is we know not ; it is an amazing mystery. 



CHAPTER VII. 

 SOILING AND SOILING CROPS. 



The practice of soiling is adapted for high pl-iced lafids 

 near large cities, where the market for milk and fine butter 

 affords a sufficient compensation for the large investment 

 of capital and the otlier expenses which appertain to highly 

 improved localities. As seven acres of pasture are required, 

 on an average, to supply one cow in fully profitable con- 

 dition, it will not pay to feed cows in this way where 

 land costs more than $100 per acre ; and indeed $50 per 

 acre may be made the limit of cost in this respect. Where 

 land is cheap, the products of it are cheaply raised, and 

 where the land is higher, necessarily the products are 

 more costly in proportion. Hence the dairyman whose 

 farm costs him four to ten times as much as that of a 

 Western or Southern farmer, cannot j)ossibly compete 

 with him in making butter or cheese, because the cost of 

 transporting those products to market by rail is much 

 less than the difference in cost. But the case was worse 

 than this, for the dairymen in Iowa and Wisconsin have 

 had their goods brought to market in competition with 

 those from New York and Vermont, and even New Jersey, 

 at an actually less cost per pound for freight. This in- 

 creased cost for less carriage was another of the burdens 

 which forced dairymen in the East to resort to the prac- 

 tice of soiling that they might reduce the cost of their 

 products. 



