238 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



May 



For the S'cid England Farmer. 

 SOILING MILCH COWS. 



Mr. a. W. Ciieever: — Sir,— I saw by the New 

 England Faiimeu, a few months since, tliat you 

 arc in the habit of soiling your stoclc for the pur- 

 poses of l)uttcr-making. V\'ill you jjlcasc give nic 

 your ])lan of soiling, whctlier you keep your cows 

 up all the time, or let tlicni run in the pasture a 

 part of the time in summer for exercise ; also how 

 much grain you feed, and what kind you consider 

 best for l)utter. 



I am on a place that has poor pastures, and I 

 wish to bring the farm up in the Itest manner. I 

 cannot pasture more than a quarter of the number 

 of cows I might winter. I am not situated so as 

 to sell milk, iliercforeinust make itutter. 



Does the soiling system pay, in your opinion ? 



If you answer the" above questions, and give me 

 6uch "other information as you think best, you will 

 greatly oblige a brother farmer. Respectfully 

 yours, li. !'• 



Holliston, Mass., March 13, 1867. 



Mi;. R. P. :— Dear Sir,— Yours of the 13th 

 is at hand, and I take the lirst opportunity to 

 answer as well as I may some of j our (jnes- 

 tions. According to the dictionary, noilimj is 

 the act or practice of feeding cattle or horses 

 with fresh grass or green food cut daily for 

 them, in^tead of pasturing them. Sti'ict soil- 

 ing would hardly allow the use of grain of any 

 kind, much less any dry or cured fodder, 

 neither any feeding in the pastures. 



I have never practiced or advocated that 

 kind of soiling for the purposes of butter-mak- 

 ing. If the object were to obtain (he largest 

 amount of milk for sale, without much regard 

 to quality, it might be, and probably in many 

 sections ol" the country it is, the best mode of 

 keeping cows in summer. 



During the last summer, I had occasion to 

 visit the" milk farms of ]\Ir. T. P. Denny and 

 Mr. llnmi)lireys, of Brookiine, who each keep 

 from twcnt\-hve to thirty cows, and who sell 

 all their milk. They feed green food princi- 

 pallv through the summer season in preference 

 to ])asluring. Several of their best cows were 

 at that time giving twenty quarts each per day 

 — a (|iianlity much above what could be ob- 

 tained on dry feed. As to pasturing milk 

 cows, these gentlemen say it is well enough 

 when the pastures are in their best condition 

 and arc near the buildings. Distant pastures 

 require of the cows too nuich travel, ami no 

 pastui-e is in its best condition but a very few 

 weeks in tlie year. 



Tlje milk farmers near the eities seem to be 

 driven to the soiling system, from necessity, 

 and they obtain uniformly larger ([uantities of 

 milk than they could by any other metliod. 

 As I make butter from my milk, 1 care as much 

 for (puility as (juantity ; and in my own prac- 

 tice, when I use tlie term solliu;/, 1 mean by 

 it stall feeding in opposition to pasturing. 

 And I believe tlie lime is soon coming when 

 this system of feeding milch cows for the dairy, 

 must be generally adopted all through the 

 Eastern part of our State, and around the 

 cities generally throughout New England. 



The style of farming has changed very much 

 since our grandfathers were on the stage. 

 They cut oif the ibrests, burned the wood, 

 except enough (or fences, sowed rye and grass 

 seed, and then pastured. The land being new 

 and well co\ered with ashes from the burned 

 timber and wood, produced lor many years 

 large crops of good pasture grass. At that 

 time land was cheap ; not worth much more 

 than the cost of clearing; and the farmers in 

 estimating the cost of a pound of butter or a 

 quart of milk, hardly took into the account 

 anything for pasture feed. Only twenty-five 

 years ago, I saw a promising heifer, two and a 

 half years old, sold for SlU.-'JO, from a drove 

 being peddle<l out on the way from Brighton 

 to Rhode Island. Pasturing must have been 

 of little account where that heifer was raised. 

 But that time has gone by, not goon to return. 

 The lands of New England are exhausted of 

 their original fertility, and a diiferent system 

 of farm management is called for. Some of 

 my neighbors are still anxious about their old 

 worn out pastures. They mow the bushes 

 every fall, and occasionally plow, manure 

 lightly, ci'op heavily ; first with potatoes, then 

 oats, next hay a few years, and then pasture 

 thirty or forty years. At the end of the rota- 

 tion the land is considerably poorer than at 

 the beginning. 



The one great trouble with the pasturing 

 system for us at the present time is, that we 

 cannot make and save enough manure fiom the 

 stock our farms will keep to enalde us to re- 

 tain the present condition of the land, but are 

 constantly making it poorer. I believe it is 

 this system that has caused the gradual run- 

 ning out of the faiming lands of the country, 

 for the past two hundred years. And I should 

 think when (arms are every week advertised 

 in the papers to be sold for what the buildings 

 would cost, it was an iiulication that we had 

 nearly reached the bottom. 



I gave up the idea of depending on pastures 

 for milch cows nearly twenty years ago, and 

 have not turned a farrow or spread a shovelful 

 of manure on any pasture, with one excep- 

 tion, since tliat time. IMy general practice 

 has been to commence near the buildings, and. 

 as far as I go, to remove all (he fences and 

 ror'ks, as fast as seems reasonable ; draining 

 where necessary, manuring very heavily the 

 best grass land, sowing thickly with grass seed 

 alone, and cutting all the grass ])ossible on the 

 ground gone over. The outside lots were 

 mowed as long as they produced suflicient to 

 pay for cutting, then turned out to pasture. 

 Pines, birches, and other kinds of forest trees, 

 were allowed to grow where 1 did not intend 

 to plow. Thus, when the land will no longer 

 l)roduce grass, there will be growing a crop 

 of wood. 



You say you cannot pasture more than a quar- 

 ter of the stock you can winter. Suppose you 

 can winter ten head and wish to keep that 

 number. If you will immediately tiuii out 



