* SOILING AI^D SOILING CROPS. 81 



Again, our hot dry summers very quickly burn up the 

 pastures, and in July the feed becomes hard and scarce, 

 and the milk product necessarily rapidly decreases. 

 Hence, some adequate provision must be made to meet 

 this emergency, and nothing serves so well as what are 

 known as soiling crops, which are cut and carried to the 

 cows on their pastures to help out the feed, or to yards 

 or feeding lots where they are kept and fed wholly upon 

 this green fodder. A very large product of milk of the 

 best quality is thus procured, and the cows are kept up 

 to their fullest productive ability by abundance of succu- 

 lent food, helped by the use of such concentrated foods as 

 can be purchased cheaply and are suitable for the pro- 

 duction of milk of excellent quality. The average pro- 

 duct of the cows may thus be easily doubled, while the 

 increased cost of the service is not more than one-fourth, 

 and in many cases, not one-tenth. In the author's dairy 

 the yield of the cows has been brought up from five 

 pounds to ten pounds of butter per week, by means of 

 soiling, while one acre of land under crops has been made 

 to support a cow during the entire year, and less than half 

 an acre per cow has been used for pasture and for the 

 needed runs for exercise. The profit has thus been not 

 only m the increased product but also in the decreased area 

 of land required, and in another way, viz., in the making 

 and saving of a large quantity of manure, the advantage . 

 of this system has been very considerable. But there are 

 many persons living in suburban localities whose home- 

 stead contains but a few acres, one or two, or three, and 

 this limited area is all that can be afforded to provide 

 room for horse and stable, garden, and ground for keep- 

 ing a family cow, a most indispensable necessity in 

 semi-rural and rural districts. The practice of soiling 

 meets such cases exactly, for if one acre of land can be 

 made by any sort of management to support a cow 

 through the year, or even the summer^ a most important 



