The Middlebury register. [volume] (Middlebury, Vt.) 1850-1882, 1870-08-02
A9rifultural department.
BY ALBERT CHAPMAN.


Agriculture show that the population OF
the United States is increasing faster than
its live stock. This result would hardly
have been expected with SO much virgin
soil every year brought under cultivation
by the enterprising emigrant.
But the decrease will be found in the
older States. Here stock raising has
kept to its old ways of using three times
as much land to Summer an animal as to
Winter it, although the animal requires
more food in cold than in warm weather.
An acre Of good grass, well cured into
hay, will winter a COW, yet from two to
five acres are devoted to pasturing her
through the Summer-say three acres on
an average. The longer land has been
devoted to grazing, the more space it
takes to pasture a cow. For the old
theory that land is benefited by pastur-
ing has proved fallacious, and the result
is that less stock is kept in the older
States. The high prices realized for the
products of the dairy, has caused an in
crease of this stock in New York and in
some other States, but very little stock is
raised as the farmer thinks the expense
too great to be repaid in the value Of the
young animal. Yet if the farmer real
lied that he could rear and keep two ami
mails on the same space that he now
keeps one and with mere trife Of addi-
tional labor, it would largely increase the
. number of live stock, and the profits of
the farmer.
And the system Of SoILING, which we
shall endeavor to illustrate in this article
will enable the farmer to keep twice the
amount of stock that he now does, under
the old system of pasturing.
Selling is term used to indicate that
green crops are cut and fed to animals in
the stable or yard
The farmer desires facts before theory.
And he is quite right, as theory often
leads astray, but facts, understood, never.
WHAT IT TAKES TO SOIL A COW.
Desiring to know just how much saw
ing there is in soiling, and having an ex-
cellent piece of clover, in its best estate,
just coming into blossom, we measured
forty square rods and commenced feeding
it to seven cows and four horses it fed
them, literally, fifteen days. The two
succeeding years we tried the same ex-
pertinent, the animals differing somewhat,
but with the same result-in each case
we found forty square rods equal to the
Summer feeding of COW. But these
crops Of clover were very heavy, and
could not always be equalled, yet allow
ing for contingencies, We came to estimate
one-half acre of land in good condition,
in clover as adequate to Summering a
COW; thus making soiling equal to from
four to six times the space in PASTURE
We tried afterwards much larger expert
ments-soiling thrty.fve cattle and hor.
SEES, and using some land in much poorer
culture, but we found the saving, compar-
atively, quite as encouraging. We Sc.
lected one hundred acres-barely sufi.
cient to have pastured this number of an.
imals-ten of it in clover, oats and sowed
corn we fed them from the Goth Of
May to the 1st day of December. We
had surplus Of sixty-fve tons of hay
after feeding these animals six months
aud ten days, which sold in the barn fol
1912. 1t required six hours labor pei
day to soil them which amounted in thost
cheap times, to sos One hundred load
of manure were saved in fine condition
worth, at least, $50 more than the drop
pings of these animals in pasture Tn,
expenses Of cutting and housing the 8;
TONS of hay was $50 per ton, or S97 80
which added to the labor Of soiling makes
Sl62.50 leaving ss59.50 as the net gail
Of this soiling experiment.
We are, the present season, soilinG
twenty cows and seventeen heifers, anC
have continued this system fourteen yrs
with constantly increasing confdenc,
in its utility
EFFECTS or SolLING UPON YIELD OF
MILK.
The dairymen, for whom this system
has many and great advantages, fear
that so great a change in the Summe
feeding will lessen the flow of milk. H
imagines it unnatural that the COW shoul
receive her supply of green food in tn
stall; but why more unnatural in Sum
than in Winter? The COW, in state Q
nature, eats green heritage the yea
through. All our stock is kept in an al
ti6cial condition, and it is not so unnatu
raj to the COW, to feed her green food i
Summer, as dry food in Winter. 1t
not necessary, because her food is brougf
to her, that she should be without exel
else, but on the contrary, some four I
six hours she may have her liberty. On
experiments show that the COW will a,
erage about one-fitth more milk in soilin
than pasturing. r, l.. Pell stated tn;
it doubled the quantity of milk from til
same cows and Josiah Quincy says
largely increased the quantity of milk
his cows
Curwen, of Cumberland, England, an
Harley, of Glasgow, established dairi
on the soiling system (lS05 to 10y, an
we're very successful in supplying milk
towns, They both say the quantity
milk is much greater in proportion to Il
food consumed, than when cows are pa
tured in open fields. Mr.. Harley est
mates one acre of grass consumed
cows in the stall as producing as mut
milk as five acres pastured, (Harleis
Dairy.
But there is a long and accurate e
pertinent published by DR.. Rhode Ed
ma, Of the Royal Academy of Agricultu
of Prussia, which we must not omit
give somewhat in detail. 1t is a me
remarkable test of the two systems.
conducted through so many years, wi
such patience and minuteness of detail,
to leave little chance of errors. Fir
seven years Of pasturing-then sew
years of sOiling, or stable feeding, as
calls it. Mr.. Hermann is the expe
menter.
The pasturing began in 1853, and Ell