SOUTHERN CULTIVATOR. 
253 
“ SOILING.’’ 
This term is used to denote the practice of confining 
animals to stalls or yards, during summer, and feeding 
them with green food, cut daily, such as corn, millet, 
oats, sugar cane, clover, lucerne, turnips, etc. This mode 
of feeding is extensively practised in England, but though 
frequently recommended, has not met with much favor 
here. The advantages claimed are : that food is thus 
consumed with less waste ; that there is a great increase 
in the amount of good manure saved ; that the animals 
are less exposed to the heat of the sun, and to flies and 
other insects ; that a larger proportion of the food goes to 
the production of fat, muscles and milk, when the ani- 
mals are kept quiet ; that much less fencing is required ; 
and, as the greatest consideration, the same quantity of 
land will furnish food for two or three times as many ani- 
mals, when the quicker growin '■ and larger plants, like 
corn, etc , are raised, instead of the common pasture gras- 
ses. These considerations are sufficient to recommend a 
more general adoption of the practice in some parts of the 
country— as near the larger cities, where land is very val- 
uable. But under ordinary circumstances the additional 
cost of gathering the food daily, would exceed the rental 
of additional pasture land enough to keep the animals. 
The manure saved by soiling is not clear gain, for this is 
distributed over the land in grazing. The advantages of 
keeping animals quiet, are probably lost in vigor, for the 
exercise taken in grazing is hardly enough to waste much 
flesh, while it must promote good health. 
But every farmer should practice “ soiling” to a limited 
degree at one season of the year, viz : in mid- summer, 
when the usual grasses are parched and dried. Under 
the best eircumstances there are always a few weeks of 
comparatively poor pasturage in July or August, and 
just then every enterprising, thoughtful farmer will have 
a bountiful supply of some succulent crop ready to cut 
and feed out in daily rations, in the stable or fields. Not 
only will the better yield of milk, and the greater vigor 
of working animals amply repay the cost at once, but all 
kinds of stock thus provided for at the most trying sea- 
son, will go into fall pasturage in good condition, and be 
ready to lay in fat and flesh against the winter. 
In “fly time” it will be found advantageous to shut up 
cattle and horses in dark stalls, during that part of the 
day when insects are most troublesome, and let cut, green 
food take the place of pasturage. 
Corn or Chinese sugar cane planted in drills, and mil- 
let, oats, etc., sown broadcast, are among the best crops 
for soiling. If planted or sown in small plots at inter- 
vals of four to eight days, a longer succession of green 
food will be secured. — American Agriculturist. 
Satan’s Marks in the Swine.— A few days since, 
ongoing into my backyard where a freshly killed pig had 
just been hung up, a man who knew I was curious in 
such matters, said, “There, now, there’s the mark as 
Satan made in the herd of swine before they ran down 
the cliff into the sea,” pointing to five dark marks on the 
skin of the inside of each fore leg. On my questioning 
him, he assured me he had never seen a pig without 
them (I have since looked at five and they had the same;) 
and he said the tradition was that all swine had them ever 
since the casting oat of the devils which destroyed the 
herd in the sea. My queries are, does this mark always 
exist”? How do anatomists account for it 7 — Notes and 
Queries. 
Hog Cholera. — Make a strong solution of Blue Stone, 
soak the Corn in it-^say twelve hours; feeed your hogs 
with it — and all that will eat freely of it, will recover from 
the cholera. So says a Jefferson county farmer. — Som- 
dersi'ille Georgian, 
Texas — A Great Country. — The Reverend Bishop 
Pierce, of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, gives 
the following picture of the state of TexRs : 
Texas is a curious country — a paradox. Everything is 
in the superlative, or contradictory, or marvelous. It is 
the richest and the poorest— has the best land and the 
meanest water; is the hardest country to live in, and has 
the most to live on ; the days are the hottest, and the 
nights the coolest; here are the most rivers, and the least 
waters ; the best roads and the slowest travel ; the finest 
building material, and the least use made of it; there are 
more clouds, and less rain ; more plains, and less timber : 
more ropes to tie horses, and yet more estrays ; a poor 
country for farming and yet the most productive ; the 
least wox*k and the largest yield ; the horses are small and 
the cattle big; the frogs have horns and the rabbits have 
ears like mules ; the people are intelligent without gene- 
ral education — inventive without being tricky— refined 
without mannerism — rich without money — hospitable 
without houses — bold, generous and brave. In fine, here 
is an empire in extent and resources, but in the slowest 
process of evolution, and yet destined to population, 
wealth and power. There is much to admire, but little 
to deplore; many things to enchant, but few to offend; 
and for the people and their institutions there is a splen- 
did future. 
The True Philosophy. — On a sultry, hot summer 
day, an honest old man was plowing his field, when sud- 
denly he beheld a godlike figure, slowly approaching him. 
The man started baek. ‘ I am Solomon,’ said the phan- 
tom, in a confiding voice. ‘ What art thou doing here, 
old man V — • If thou art Solomon,’ was the reply, ‘how 
cans’t thou ask me 7 When I was a youth thou didst 
send me to the ant ; I saw its method of living, and taught 
me to be diligent, industrious, and gather the superfluous 
for a stormy day. What I then learnt, I still continue to 
do.’ ‘ Thou hast studied thy lesson but half,’ replied the 
spirit ; ‘ go once more to the ant, and learn from it also 
how to find rest and quiet in the winter of thy years, 
and how to enjoy that which thou hast hoarded up.’ 
Bricks that will float used to be made years ago, 
but the art has been lost until recently. A Monsieur 
Fabroni has, it is said, discovered their composition, 
which is said to be fifty-five parts of siliceous earth, fif- 
teen of Magnesia, fouiteen of water, twelve of alumina, 
three of lime, and one of iron. They are infusible, and 
will float in water though one-twentieth part of common 
clay be added to them. They resist water, unite perfect- 
ly with lime and are subject to no change from heat or 
cold. They . are nearly as strong as common brick, 
though only about one-sixth as heavy or considerably 
lighter than water. They are such poor conductors of 
heat one end may be heated red hot while the other end 
is held in the hand. — Exchange paper. 
Pork — How much to a bushel op Corn. — J. B. 
Cross, of East Highgate, Vt., paid Sl;50 for a pig, one- 
fourth Suffolk to three-fourths native, of 7 pounds weight, 
April 10, 1858 ; fed on milk and slop and 13 1-2 bushels 
of corn meal, made into pudding, until December 8, and 
then killed, and weighed 326 pounds of pork. He says : 
“The question is not answered, from the fact that I fed 
some milk, but I have come to the conclusion I got about 
22 pounds of pork for every bushel of corn fed. This I 
think is as much pork as a bushel of corn will make, 
unl^s there should be a difference in the breed of hogs. 
Some think there is, but I have been inclined to think 
the difference is more in feeding.” 
