SOILING. 175 



exercise, and they were always quite as healthy and more 

 thrifty than colts on pasture. Soiling furnishes an equal 

 and plentiful diet, pasturing an unequal and often very 

 scanty diet. In soiling the feeder has the condition of his 

 animals entirely under his control, because he can supply 

 such quantity of food as he chooses. The animal will 

 make more progress on the same quantity and quality of 

 food, because he gets it without unnecessary exercise. Ex- 

 ercise requires extra food to compensate for the waste of 

 muscle. The true rule should be to let an animal, at cer- 

 tain hours of the day, take such exercise as it chooses, to 

 promote health; not compel it to work sixteen hours to 

 gain a living. The writer tested the comparative effect of 

 soiling and pasturing on the same class of animals, by put- 

 ting five two-year-old steers and heifers, weighing 4,500 

 Ibs., into a good pasture, while five of the same age and 

 condition, weighing 4,450 Ibs., were soiled, with exercise in 

 a small yard, and, at the end of four months, those in the 

 pasture had gained 625 Ibs., and the five soiled had gained 

 750 Ibs. , with nothing save green soiling food, making the 

 two lots equal in kind of food. The pasture, although 

 good and abundant when the experiment began, did not 

 continue equally good throughout, on account of dry 

 weather, whilst the soiling food was given in equal abun- 

 dance to the end. A little grain would probably have 

 added 200 Ibs. more to those soiled, and no doubt also to 

 those pastured. Grain is usually about as cheap as grass, 

 and quite as cheap as hay, and might more generally be 

 used with profit as an addition to these foods. In soiling 

 it is easy to add grain when the grass or other green fodder 

 becomes tough or scanty, and thus never allow an abatement 

 in growth. In the feeding of " baby beef," mentioned in 

 the next chapter, this grain ration was given with excellent 

 effect. There can be no standing still, if steers are to gain 

 two Ibs. per day for the first 800 days. The German and 



