62 Soiling. 



when a cow is turned to pasture, and has to go 

 to a distant part of a field to help herself, she 

 waits until great thirst drives her to it. Finally, 

 when she does go, instead of getting a drink and 

 returning to business, she overloads her stomach 

 with water, and stands about in the stream or 

 pond until absolute hunger drives her out again. 

 So she lives on from day to day, eating only 

 when she is very hungry, and drinking only when 

 thi'rst becomes excessive. The soiling system, 

 with a good well or spring at the barn, prevents 

 all this annoyance, and is no small matter in add- 

 ing to the comfort and also to the credit account 

 of the animal. 



Lastly, and perhaps most important of all, so far 

 as the animals' comfort is concerned, by a proper 

 system of soiling the cattle are protected from 

 flies, those awful pests that sap their blood and 

 drive them to a state little short of frenzy. How 

 can cattle so tormented be expected to do a good 

 day's work? Living in the best of pastures after 

 the middle of June is simply living to exist. To 

 show skeptical people that cattle preferred being shut 

 up in their stables in fly-time, to roaming at will in 

 pastures, I have turned my cattle out-^away they 

 would go with their tails over their backs until the 

 flies got after them, when back thej' came to their 

 stalls as fast as they went. 



If the reader could see the difference in the con- 

 dition of the cattle soiled and those pastured after 

 the beginning of fly-time, he would see such a con- 



