SOILING, ENSILAGE, AND STABLE 

 CONSTRUCTION. 



CHAPTER I. 

 OUR SOILS. 



The great problem of feeding and clothing the 

 millions depends upon the success of agriculture: 

 The day has gone by, in the Eastern States at least, 

 when a man can "farm it," because he does not 

 know enough to do anything else. There is no 

 business or profession in which a man is obliged to 

 have such a diversity of knowledge as in farming. 

 Every day brings him face to face with widely dif- 

 ferent questions. There are his cows, their man- 

 agement, breeding, care, feeding, the disposal of 

 their product. Likewise his sheep, horses, swine, 

 poultry, bees. Then there are his fruit trees, dif- 

 ferent varieties, requiring special care and attention, 

 and special knowledge. There is, as I said before, 

 not a trade or profession requiring such a widely di- 

 versified knowledge as general farming. 



Our predecessors who, through ignorance, robbed 

 the soil of its fertility, left us little — in these days of 

 keen competition — but a legacy of unprofitable labor. 

 We ought to profit by their mistakes, and find some 

 way, if possible, to make our land more productive. 



