The Middlebury register. [volume] (Middlebury, Vt.) 1850-1882, 1870-08-09
agricultural department.
CONDUCTED BY ALBERT CHAPMAN.
Soiling.
ny W. y. STEWART.
CONTINUED FROM LAST WEEK.
HOW sOILJNg SAVES MANURr.
Soiling.


One of the greatest needs Of the farm.
er is manure, and stable feeding offers
the best facility for making and preserv-
ing it. 1t will hardly be disputed that
this manure, saved under cover, is worth
double the droppings from the same ami
mails in the field, dried and exhaled by
common exposure. Then soiling will en-
able the feeder to keep double the num-
Der of animals, and thus to make four
times the value of manure. This manure
will be Just what is needed to dress the
winter wheat or grass lands in the Fall.
Mr. Josiah Quincy, who soiled his an
finals for many years, estimates the ma
nure from COW to be worth SO for the
six soiling months.
Prof. johnson says the liquid and sol
id manure from COW is valued at $50
per year in Flanders. In soiling fifty
cows, requiring the labor of one good
man, the manure at Mr.. Quincy's esti-
mate would be $3.50; and one-half of
this, or 1925, would more than pay the
labor of soiling.
HOW 1T SAVES FOOD, AND KILLS WEEDS.
Animals destroy much of the grass in
pasture by treading, lying upon it, dung
and urine. Selling permits no such waste.
Often cropping grass in pasture also pre-
vents much growth. Suppose grass were
mown every few days, who would expect
its usual growth? Those spots that pro.
duce the sweetest grass are cropped by
animals the most, and thus prevented
from supplying more than small
per centage ofwhat they otherwise would.
Selling also uses weeds as well as de.
stroys them. Animals will eat any of
the ordinary weeds mixed with grasses,
when cut young and tender for soiling.
Even young Canada thistles are thus cat.
en- by horses. The white daisy will be
eaten by cows. Frequent cutting ofweeds
also kills them. The moving machine
has proved an enemy to weeds, because
in its resistless march nothing escapes,
while the old time mowers scythe tender
ly turned out for clump of weeds. Soil
ing will be hopeful movement towards
clean farms.
ECONOMIzING LAND.
If one acre of good grass will winter
cow when made into hay, how waste
full it is to devote three times as much to
summer her. Grass, in its succulent
state, is much more soluble, and therefore
digestible than the same grass dried into
hay.
Wolf, the chemist, found that green
clover, calculated dry, had only twenty.
nine per cent of insoluble fibre, while
clover had forty-six per cent. This shows
why the green food, from certain space
of ground, will 60 so much farther in
feeding cattle than the same food dried /;
and yet pasturing is so wasteful, that not.
withstanding this advantage, of green
over dried clover, one acre of clover hay
will 60 as far toward wintering animals
as two or three pasturing.
Our experiments have proved that 40
rods of ground may be SO fertile as to
produce the summers food for COW, yet
we generally estimate one-half acre in
good condition, as necessary and one acre
to winter her. This view must be very
encouraging to the small farmer, as it
would enable him, with twenty-five acres
in fertile condition, to keep ten COWS and
team, besides raising grain for small
family To show that this is not extrav.
agant, we will quote an instance from the
New England Homestead
Coming into possession Of nine acres
Of land, in the neighborhood of good
market, made by the demands of IA large
literary institution, he cast about as to
what was to be done. Two COWS and a
horse were his stock, and pasture being
difficult to obtain, he determined to keep
his cows in the barn. The greatest trou.
BILE was the rapid accumulation of manure.
By good husbandry he properly saved
that and fed it to his crops Finding his
crops increasing, he added another COW.
Another COW only made more manure.
More manure husbanded in the same way
made more crops, and the third year he
added another COW and set himself to get
up new barn and when / last saw
him, he had new barn with modern i'm.
provements, of good size, horse, pair
Of cattle and five COWS, and yet he had
not thought OF buying more land, but
wanted one more cow"
We understand this to be an actua
experiment, and it more than backs W
our statement. Nine acres carrying
stock OF five cows, two oxen and hors'
with room enough for another COW.
This nine acres kept as much stock a
some fifty acre farms. But this state
mcnt is paralleled in many portions o
Germany and France, where eight to tel
cows are often kept upon ten acres o
land In these countries fences are al
most unknown; stone marks the boun
dairy between farms, and cattle are stall
ed summer and winter.
sOILING CROPS
Economy of labor in soiling require
the crops to be raised near where the,
are to be fed. A few acres near tn
barn should be made very fertile, an,
then used in rotation for the differen
soiling crops. Here the labor of manur
ing them will be less, and the conven
fence of feeding much greater. White
I'VE, where it fourishes, will furnish tn
earliest cutting Of green food in tn
spring-and may be cut several time
during the season. This makes an ex
cellent soiling crop. The next is cleve
and orchard grass mixed. This gras
ripens at the same time with clover,
very nutritious and palatable to horse
and cattle. Orchard grass has latel
been highly spoken of, and in proof thu
its praises are well deserved, we will r,
cur to the opinion of Washington. Fl
says " Orchard grass, of oil others, is,
my opinion, the best mixture with clio,
er; it blooms precisely at the same tim
rises quick again after cutting, stant