Knoxville daily chronicle. [volume] (Knoxville, Tenn.) 1870-1882, 1872-08-08
SOiling Farm Stock.

There are so many advantages in soiling,
or feeding farm stock in stables and under
sheds in Summer, rather than Craze them at
large, that the practice is certain to become
common in the South at no distant day.
Mr.. Rham, (high English authority, says:
"a cow or OK requires from two TO three
acres OF pasture or meadow to feed it all the
year round, allowing portion of hay. But
by raising clover, lucern, sainfoin, tares
and other green crops, three COWS or more
can be fed with the produce of one acre,
especially, if portion is in turnips and
other succulent roots. Thus the straw of
the white crops is converted into excellent
manure, and the land kept in a state of fer
tility."
The above statement shows five-fold
increase of production per acre. That is to
TO Craze cow year, Ia part being in
meadow that quantity of land, by soiling,
will keep five COWS twelve months, giving
five times the quantity of milk, butter or
cheese, and five times more manure for the
same area of land.
When stock are grazing, it is unavoida-
BILE that their droppings should befoul,
from day to day, a good deal of grass,
which will not be eaten. 1t is certain that,
SO much of this excrement as is consumed
by very numerous bugs, in all our fields,
plants. In this way, large share of our
cattle manure is lost. When the bugs die
we may receive a small return, if their
bodies are not devOGred by other bugs, and
the organic matter carried on indefinitely,
till all is consumed to support animal vi.
tality. On Southern farms, the loss of an
imal manure is very great, as we now man.
age or rather neglect these things. Ali
know that our working stock-mules,
horses and oxen, our cows and sheep-are
seriously annoyed by many insects, such
as blood-sucking flies, bot-bees, gad-fies,
ticks, &c. In Rquiet, cool, well-bedded,
ventilated, and darkened stable, with a
fair allowance of nutritious heritage, a
given quantity of food will return twice
the gain in flesh and strength to all scat
tle," (using the word seattle" in its old
English sense as applying as we'll to horses
and sheep, as to "net cattle'), that can be
realized when exposed out in open fields.
In plain words, our farm stock receive too
little protection and care, alike in Summer
and Winter. Indian corn, which cannot
be grown to any advantage in England, is
one OF our best sOiling plants. Clover, and
all the best perennial grasses are available
for the same purpose. Cutting these by
horsepower, and hauling forage on cheap
railways, and manure back on the same
track, the cost of handling both stock food
and .plant-food, will be comparatively
small: Hence, under the sound doctrine
of rich land, of large production alike of
vegetable and animal growth, of healthy
stock, and the minimum of injury done by
insect enemies, with all labor-saving ma
chinery brought to perfection, depicting
practice, with little or no restitution, must
come to happy end.
1t is not the right way to have cows and
other stock dropping their excrements on
the food which they are to eat. It is not
the. right way to let bugs consume this
food of agricultural plants. It is not the
right way to permit swarms of biting flies
and other pests to torment our useful quad
rupeds, if We can prevent it. It is not the
right way to call ourselves either planters,
farmers, or husbandmen, when we neither
plant, farm, nor husband anything as our
work ought to be done. We may be, pos
sibly, great land killers, great mule and
cattle killers, great grumblers at kind
Providence; but we are not first-rate cult
vators of the soil. L.