178 FEEDING ANIMALS. 



This testimony would seem to establish the fact that 

 soiling is favorable to milk production, and the writer's 

 experience has fully confirmed this view. He has often 

 stated the gain to be from 20 to 30 per cent, over that of 

 ordinary pasture. This may be accounted for, 1st, by the 

 saving of exercise in not having to forage over the pasture 

 all day for food, as the food required to support this exer- 

 cise goes to the secretion of milk; and 2dly, because in 

 soiling, the cow gets, uniformly, all the food she can digest; 

 whilst in pasture a full supply of food is uncertain, and not 

 usually obtained for more than brief periods. It is not 

 contended that soiling will produce more milk than the 

 best pasture, whilst that lasts it is the whole season upon 

 which this improved yield is calculated. 



The dairyman is now likely to enter upon the system of 

 continuous milk production, extending through the winter 

 as well as the summer; and the new plan of preserving 

 green fodder in silos naturally belongs to the soiling sys- 

 tem. By this method he will use green food throughout 

 the year, and keep his cows as cheaply in winter as in sum- 

 mer; for with warm stables, the fodder produced upon the 

 same amount of land that kept them in summer will give 

 them full rations in winter; and the same flow of milk may 

 be kept up, requiring little o-r no grain -ration, according to 

 the kind of green food preserved for winter use. It seems 

 likely, with the successful preservation of green fodder, 

 that the cost of keeping stock will be much less than 

 under the old system, as the loss by drying is regarded, 

 under favorable circumstances, as not lese than 10 per cent., 

 and under the ordinary practice much more than that. 

 But for winter dairying, this green food will have the im- 

 portant quality of flavor. Grasses lose much of their 

 aroma in drying. According to reports from France, 

 where ensilage has been much used for the last ten years, 

 the aroma of the green food is preserved in silos. This 



