Soiling

Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)

in agriculture, the practice of feeding farm animals green fodder in the stable, instead of pasturing them. Cropping is another term for the same method. The practice was brought to the notice of Americans as early as 1820 by Josiah Quincy, an intelligent agriculturist of Massachusetts. He got his ideas from Europe. Soiling is applicable particularly to a dairy farm. There are several advantages. When cows are kept in a barn it is necessary to fence only a small pen, for exercise; the cows are sheltered from the rain and from annoying insects; there is no waste of feed through trampling; the manure can all be saved and applied where it is needed; two or three times as much feed can be raised on the same amount of land; and, far from seeming to suffer from confinement, stock actually does better. Fattening animals gain in weight more rapidly, and dairy cows give a much greater flow of milk. By soiling and keeping a small farm in a high state of fertility, it can be made to yield much greater profit than a larger one can under ordinary systems of farming. In the Year Book of the Department of Agriculture for 1903, Mr. Spillman tells of a fifteen acre farm in southeastern Pennsylvania. Two acres are occupied by buildings and yards. The remaining thirteen acres raise all the forage needed for thirty head of stock, seventeen of which are dairy cows. The crops grown are rye, timothy, clover, corn, peas, oats, and millet. Two crops a year are raised in some of the fields. The animals are kept in stalls; the manure is carted to the fields daily. In addition to green feed raised on the farm, grain is bought with a part of the proceeds from the cows. One man and a boy have done the work and have over $1,000 a year to show for their labor.