SOILING. 167 



CHAPTER VII. 



SOILING. 



PREVIOUS to entering upon the discussion of the feeding 

 any one class of stock, we think it fitting to give a short 

 explanation of that mode of feeding now exciting great 

 interest in all localities of dear land soiling. The author 

 does this with the more pleasure, as he was one of the early 

 and earnest advocates of this mode of summer feeding on 

 arable land worth $50 per acre. When he first wrote upon 

 the subject of cutting green food in summer and feeding it 

 to animals in stall or rack in the open yard, few were ready 

 to listen ; it was deemed a Utopian scheme for performing 

 useless labor. But a rapid change has been coming over 

 cattle-feeders during the last twenty years upon the econ- 

 omy of soiling, caused mainly by the necessity for dairy- 

 men to provide green food for their cows during droughts 

 or short pasture from other causes. In feeding an acre of 

 good fodder corn, millet, clover, etc., they find the gain 

 over pasture to be so great as to arrest their attention, and 

 set them to thinking upon the propriety of using four 

 acres of pasture when one acre soiled would furnish more 

 cattle food. And besides, many occupants of small farms 

 have not the space for pasturing any considerable number 

 of stock, and turn to this method of feeding, which enables 

 them to keep more than double the number of animals on 

 a given number of acres. Josiah Quincy, who practiced 

 the soiling system in Massachusetts as early as 1814, in 

 speaking of the prevalent opinion of his time, as late as 



