SOILING, OR STALL-FEEDING. 
139 
or pulse usually cultivated. Oats contain as a 
maximum about 7, and Indian corn about 9 per 
cent, of oil, but these cakes contain 12 per cent., 
and are, therefore, in their ability to supply fat to 
an animal, superior to any of our cultivated grains. 
3. These oil-cakes leave six per cent, of ash, of 
which one-third consists of phosphoric acid ; lOOlbs. 
of oil-cake, therefore, contain 2 lbs. of phosphoric 
acid. On the other hand, our common kinds of 
grain—wheat, for example—leave only two per cent, 
of ash, of which one-half consists of phosphoric 
acid, or lOOlbs. of wheat contain lib. of phosphoric 
acid. Therefore , for laying on hone , or for supply¬ 
ing the materials of bone to growing stock, oil¬ 
cake is twice as valuable as wheat , weight for weight, 
and more than twice as valuable as oats or barley , 
which are covered with a husk. 
4. Again, the same reasoning shows that, as 
grains of all kinds draw their phosphoric acid from 
the soil, these oily seeds will exhaust the soil of its 
phosphates to a much greater degree than our corn- 
crops; 100 lbs. of linseed will carry off twice as 
much of them from the soil as lOOlbs. of wheat. 
5. But the same circumstances supply an addi¬ 
tional reason why the manure of full-grown store 
stock fed upon oil-cake is so much richer than that 
obtained by the use of any other kind of food. It is 
richer, because the proportion of the protein com¬ 
pounds (albumen, &c.) in the oil-cake is greater 
than the fattening animal can appropriate, and thus 
much of them passes off in a more or less changed 
state, and is mixed with the dung. The oil also is 
in larger proportion than can at times be laid on 
their bodies even by fattening stock, and this un¬ 
questionably contributes to the fertilizing quality of 
the manure. But the full-grown animal appropri¬ 
ates scarcely any of the phosphates ; the whole of 
these,-therefore, which the animal consumes in its 
food, appears again in its dung. And the oil-cakes 
being richer in these phosphates, weight for weight, 
than any kind of grain used for food, the dung thus 
made is also richer in these phosphates than that 
which is obtained from animals fed upon almost 
any other kind of food. 
Among other things, Professor Johnston travel¬ 
led several months in different parts of the country, 
and delivered a series of lectures to various assem¬ 
blies of farmers, after which an application was 
made by the parochial schoolmasters of Scotland 
for three lectures on the best mode of teaching the 
elements of Agricultural Chemistry to older boys in 
their schools. Professor Johnston complied with 
the request, and gave gratuitously the lectures solici¬ 
ted. They were attended by upwards of 400 school¬ 
masters, and excited among them the deepest interest. 
We hope American schoolmasters will soon make 
a similar request, and that they may find some one 
equally competent to lecture to them as is Prof. 
Johnston. 
How to make Mead. —To one gallon of water 
add four pounds of pure honey, and aromatic herbs 
or not, according to taste. Boil the whole in a cop¬ 
per nearly three-quarters of an hour, and skim 
well. Then allow the mead to stand in the copper 
until nearly cold, when it should be bottled up and 
kept till old enough to drink. 
SOILING, OR STALL-FEEDING. 
The advantages which arise from stall-feeding, 
in Europe, and in some parts of this country, are 
very great. The same number of animals are main¬ 
tained on the produce of less than half the quantity 
of land that would be required, if the cattle were 
allowed to feed in the fields ; but whether this plan 
can be adopted in all parts of the United States, yet 
remains to be proved. In general, land is cheap in 
this country, labor high, and produce usually brings 
moderate prices when compared with those of Eu¬ 
rope. We think, however, that the subject is high¬ 
ly worthy of a series of experiments accurately 
made and recorded by competent persons residing 
in different parts of the country, and the results 
made known as proposed in our last number by 
Dr. Field. 
The object of any judicious farmer should be, to 
improve his own condition, by improving the con¬ 
dition of his farm ; and as this cannot be done 
without manure, and as manure cannot always be 
had without stock, it becomes a matter of prime 
consideration how the animals can be most eco¬ 
nomically maintained and made available, and by 
what management the largest quantity of manure 
can be obtained. 
The experience of the best farmers in Europe 
and a few well authenticated cases in this country, 
prove that, by the growth of green crops, such as 
clover, rye-grass, lucerne, Indian corn, turnips, 
mangel-wurtzel, carrots, and cabbages, the same 
ground which in poor pasture would scarcely feed 
one cow in summer, will, under judicious manage¬ 
ment of the crops above mentioned, feed three the 
whole year round, if the cattle are kept and fed in 
the house; and further, that the manure produced 
by one of these cows so fed, and well bedded 
with the straw saved by using better food, will be 
equal to that produced by three cows pastured in 
summer, and kept badly littered in winter, with 
only straw and hay to eat. If therefore, three 
cows may thus be provided with food in the house 
all the year, from ground which will scarcely feed 
one under pasture for the summer; and if one cow 
so fed in the house will afford as much manure as 
three fed in the field ; it follows that any one who 
may now be able to keep only one cow, would, by 
adopting this plan, be able to keep three, each pro¬ 
ducing as much manure as three cows fed in the 
usual way; and that he will have nine times as 
much manure by this method, as he would have by 
the old. 
In proof of the advantages which attend the soil¬ 
ing of cattle, it may be stated, as the result of an 
experiment actually made in England with an acre 
and a half of red clover, that seven milch-cows 
were fed with the produce for 64 days, each cow 
being supplied with 168 lbs. of clover daily, making 
in all 33i tons of produce from the acre and a half 
of land, in the 64 days ; and the value of the ma¬ 
nure produced by the seven cows so fed was very 
great. Manure constitutes, in truth, one chief 
source of the farmer’s wealth; yet from a too com¬ 
mon disregard or mismanagement of this important 
element of fertility, what serious losses every year 
are sustained, not by the farmer only, but by the 
community at large. 
