SOILING is the name given in agriculture to the mode of feeding horses and cattle in the stable or yards with food brought to them as it is cut in the meadows or fields. The great advantage of soiling cattle is the increase of manuro of the best quality, which is thereby produced; and this circumstance alone can counterbalance the great trouble and expense incurred in cutting and carrying all the green food from a distance to the farmyard.
The system of soiling is not very generally adopted in British husbandry, it being so much easier to allow the cattle to crop their food in the pastures; but in those countries where property in land is greatly subdivided, and where farms are small and good pastures scarce, as in Flanders, France, and Switzerland, especially where the render manure scarce and clear by taking a considerable portion of it and returning none, there the soiling of cattle is almost a matter of necessity. A cow or ox requires from two to three acres of pasture or meadow to feed it all the year round, allowing a portion for hay. But by raising clover, lucern, sainfoin, tares, and other green crops, one or two cows can be fed with the produce of ono acre, espe cially if a portion is in mangold wurzel or other succulent roots. Thus the straw of the white crops is converted into excellent manure, and the land kept in a state of fertility.
In proportion as a farm is larger in extent, so the expense of soiling increases, both from the distance of the fields where the green crops grow, and from the same'distance to which the dung has to be carted. There is a limit therefore to the soiling system, unless there be many yards or stables in different parts of a farm, so as to sub ' divide it, and make each yard the ceucre of a distinct system of soil ing, with fields near at hand for the green crops. In almost every experiment on a large scale it has been found that soiling was only a certain mode of purchasing dung, and that it often was more expensive to procure it in this way than to scud to a considerable distance to purchase it In towns. Where it cannot be purchased at all, there are no other means, in many situations, of producing a sufficient quantity; and the trouble and expense of soiling must be submitted to. In almost every case where sheep can be folded to feed off the crops, the soiling of cattle is a loss, because the sheep pay some thing for their food; the cattle in the stall do so less frequently.
But there are animals which must be fed for the work of the farm, such as horses or oxen ; and these are much more profitably and economically fed by soiling than by any other means. A horse or ox, if he works eight or ten hours, has no time for rest if he has to crop his food from a short pasture, however sweet ; whereas an abundant supply of clover, lucern, or tares enables him to take a hearty meal and lie down to rest. He wants no corn with this food, and does his work without losing flesh or activity.
There is nothiug easier in a mild climate, and especially a moist one, like Britain or Ireland, than to have a succession of green food from the beginning of spring to the end of autumn, and afterwards a suc cession of succulent vegetable food through the winter. Rye and winter barley, sown early in autumn, will be ready to cut as soon as the mild weather of spring commences; some sown later with winter tares, and the young clover, which has not been cropped in autumu, will succeed. After this come artificial grasses, as Italian rye-grass and the grass of water-meadows mown early ; although this last is not such hearty food for working cattle; but when joined to a mixture of oats and cut straw, their watery nature is corrected. Clover and spring tares (when these last are sown at proper intervals), lucern and sain foin (if the soil is suited to them), will afford a constant and abundant supply to the scythe which cuts the daily allowance. It is prudent to provide against failure, and have more land in these crops than is absolutely necessary, because the surplus can always be made into hay or reserved to ripen its seed ; and these green crops, valuable as they are, far from deteriorating the soil, clear it of weeds, and render it more fit to bear corn afterwards. Turnips, carrots, and mangold wurzel provide with hay and straw the winter food. And by steaming the roots or pulping them, and so mixing with chaff of hay or straw, a palatable and nutritious food may be provided at small expense. In these cases soiling is profitable and economical.