ZS«» 
THE CULTIVATOR. 
67 
the point of draught at the shoulder, to the point of the share, passing 
through the regulating notch of the muzzle. It is proper, therefore, to 
ascertain the animal’s height, in order that the muzzle may be fixed ac¬ 
cordingly; but as his shoulder is not so far from the ground when he is 
pulling as when he is in a state of rest, an allowance must be made for 
the difference. Thus if a line be drawn from A, at the share of the plough, 
to B, and then a perpendicular line from B to C, at the horse’s shoulder, 
an angle is formed; then if another perpendicular line be formed from A 
to a, an! measured upon the same scale, it will give the height of the 
beam from the ground, at the depth at which it is to be ploughed. 
Fig. 28, C 
A B 
It follows, therefore, fh.tt the more the beam is raised in height, the 
longer it must be made, and consequently the traces of horses must be 
lengthened: this, however, lessens their power; for it is sufficiently well 
known, without entering into any mathematical proof upon the subject, 
that the farther the animal is placed from his work, the less effectual will 
he his exerlions. The Rev. Mr. Priest made this experiment, with a fur¬ 
row 9J inches wide and 3| deep; when the length of the horses’ traces 
was 10 feet 5 inches from the point of the share to the point upon their 
shoulders upon whence they were drawing, the force exerted upon the 
point of draught of the plough, or the power of their draught, was only 
24 cwt. but when the traces were lengthened to 15 feet 6 inches, the 
force exerted to draw the plough was 3| cwt.— See Brit. Husbandry. 
SUMMER SOILING. 
This ter.s is applied to the feeding of cattle with grass, or grain, or oth¬ 
er herbage, cut and fed to them green, in stables, sheds, or yards. It is 
extensively pracised in Flanders, Holland, and other districts on the con¬ 
tinent of Europe, and partially in Britain, and particularly in the vicinity 
of the large towns, where land is in great demand, or where it is naturally 
rich, or has been rendered so by art. In these cases the profits are palpa¬ 
ble, at least twice the number of cattle being subsisted upon the same 
ground, when the fodder is cut and fed green, as when depastured. 
T ie advantages of the practice are stated to be, the saving of the crops 
from destruction when in pasture, by treading, staling, dunging and lying 
down upon them; in economizing food—cattle eating many coarse kinds 
of grass and weeds, when cut, which they will not touch when growing! 
in the field; in the great saving of manure which it effects; in the advantag¬ 
es of rest and quietude to the animals; in the preservation of the ground 
from being poached in wet weather; and in the diminished expense of ma¬ 
king and repairing fences. 
The objections to the practice are, that it prevents cattle from healthful 
exercise, necessary to the young, to cows and sheep; that unon poor farms 
the saving in food does not make up for the expense of labor in tending the 
stock: and that it interferes with the regular routine of farm labor. And, 
in its application to us, it may be remarked, that we produce neither the 
tares, the sanfoin, nor but few of the turnips, which make a considerable 
portion of the soiling food in Europe. Our reliance would be upon early 
sown winter rye, clover, lucern and the common grasses. 
Nicely managed experiments have been made, by some of the most 
eminent agriculturists of Great Britain, to decide upon the relative merits 
of soiling and pasturing, some of the results of which we will state in a 
summary form. 
Mr. Curwen, well known to the agricultural reader a3 one of the most 
eminent farmers and greatest experimentalists in Britain, and withal a zea¬ 
lous advocate for soiling, instituted a number of experiments, which have 
been recorded. His first experiment was upon two cows, and the expe¬ 
riment continued from the 14th May to the 1st of October, one being soi¬ 
led and the other pastured. The soiled beast gained 16 stone, the pas¬ 
tured one 9 stone. The first, after taking into account the relative value 
of food consumed, paid a profit of 10£d. (say 18 cents) per day: the other 
of ?|1. 
He next took six three year olds, tied them up on the 27th June, and 
soiled them till the 9th November, with grass of very little value, cut 
from the hedges, plantations and walks, and during the last month had an 
addition of carrot and turnip tops. They gained 75 stone of flesh, estima¬ 
ted to be worth £17. 10s. or an average of £2. 18s. 4d. each (about $11. 
85.) 
He next fed 17 calves, beginning when they were two months old. 
During the first month they had one gallon of new milk per day; for three 
months afterwards, three gallons. Turnips and hay were given with the 
milk. From June till October the food was clover; afterwards, till the 
end of May. turnips. In size they were little inferior to those of double 
their age. At 18 months old, one was slaughtered. The live weight, 
770 lbs.; the carcass weighed 474 lbs., loose fat, 37 lbs. This was an 
Ayreshire; the Durhams. of which the flock in part consisted, were larger 
and in better condition, and would have killed 650 lbs. at least. 
Mr. Brown, of Markle, made an experiment with 48 cattle, bought in 
autumn, and wintered in the larm yard. They were equally divided, and 
on the 4th of May one half were put to pasture, and the other into the 
yard, where they got a small quantity of Swedish turnips, until the clover 
was fit for cutting. During June and July, they were subsisted upon cut 
clover, fed in cribs, and the offal cleaned out and fed to swine. The yard 
cattle were then fed with tares until the second crop of clover was fit to 
| cut, and upon this they were kept until sold, ten on the 28th August, and 
I the residue on the 28th September. The statement of the cost and profit 
j is given as follows: 
! The 48 cattle cost together, for purchase and wintering, £503 02 00 
The 10 best of the soiled cattle were sold at £17 15s., and the remain¬ 
der of the whole number at £14 5s. each, thus yielding, 
For tr.e soiled lot of 24, £377" 00 00 
ditto grazed do 342 00 00 
Or 29s 2d. (about $6) per head more upon the soiled than the grazed cat¬ 
tle; although they were all purchased at one price, and separated with most 
accurate fairness. The food consumed by the 24 soiled cattle was grown 
upon 12| acres, and consisted of 8 acres of clover, 3 do. tares, and 1| of 
Swedish turnips. “ Being £125 9s. for the cost of food and profit upon 
the stock.” Mr. Brown expresses his belief, “ that the saving per acre 
by soiling will amount to 50 per cent; or, in other words, that a field of 
clover and rye grass will feed one half more beasts when cut by the scythe, 
than when it is depastured.” Sir John Sinclair states, that the same num¬ 
ber of stock were soiled on 17 acres, which had always previously requir¬ 
ed 50 acres of pasture. In a trial reported to the board of agriculture, 33 
head of cattle were said to have been soiled, from the 20th May to the 1st 
October, on 17£ acres, on which it is stated it would have required 60 
acres to have pastured them. The above facts are abstracted from British 
Husbandry, Low’s Elements, &c. which see. 
We have gone into this exposition, from a conviction that soiling may 
be beneficially introduced here, in finishing cattle, stall-fed in the winter, 
for the spring and summer market—in feeding working cattle—and as an 
auxiliary means of increasing the products and profits of the dairy. We 
have, or may have, pretty ample resources for this mode of management, 
in the Swedish turnip, the lucetn and the clover. The turnips will servo 
tiil June, with hay or straw. We speak from experience; for we have 
thus fed them for the last dozen years. The lucern is fit to begin to cut 
from the 15th to the 25th May, and clover by the middle of June. 
The precaution must however be observed, in changing from dry to green 
food, to use the latter at first sparingly, or to begin by mixing the two 
kinds. 
Stall-fed cattle generally lose at first, on shifting them in spring from 
the stable to the pasture. Working cattle, after the labor of the day, fill 
themselves with cut grass more speedily than they can at grazing, and 
have more time, when fed, to ruminate and rest. And with milch cows, 
particularly when pastures are short, a bite of cut lucern or clover, at 
morning and evening, makes an astonishing difference in the product of 
milk. An acre of good lucern, judiciously fed in this way to a herd of 
cows, would, we think, increase the profits of the dairy at least $50 in a 
season. We have had as great a quantity of milk from cows in December, 
fed with roots, as in June in good pasture. 
In conducting the soiling system, it is best to give the food often and in 
small quantities, as otherwise the cattle will blow upon and reject it; and. 
given in too great abundance it will cloy them, and will be no longer re¬ 
lished. Straw mixed with green food tends to correct any disposition to 
looseness in the bowels. The remains of the food should be removed to 
the pig-pen, or elsewhere, immediately after the stock have done with it, 
Anti-cattle choaker, is the term applied to a tarred rope, to remove ob¬ 
structions in the throat of animals, as apples, potatoes, &c. The public 
are indebted to Paine Wmgate, a highly respectable farmer of Maine-,, 
for the suggestion. He takes a tarred rope an inch in diameter, and six 
feet long, untwists three or four inches at the end, and leaves a tuft of it 
loose, in order to make a kind of ball or swab-like end, and this he covers 
with a piece of linen or canvass, and winds it tightly and smoothly with 
yarn. With this the obstruction may be forced into the stomach without- 
injury to the beast. It is better than a cart-whip, or an elastic cane with, 
a dosset of tow, which we see recommended in the English books. 
The IT inter green. (Chymophylla corymboso,) which abounds in all 
our pine woods, although an insignificant humble plant,, possesses valua¬ 
ble medical qualities, and affords a proof of the correctness of St. Pierre’s 
remark, that Providence has provided, in every country, not only what is 
most essential to the sustenance of its animal population, but that which is 
most essential to its medical wants. It appears by a paper read before the 
London Medico-Botanic Society, that ij has long been held.among the fa- 
