profit small. A week of wet weather at cutting time or the
impossibility of getting enough men and machines in the week when it
should be cut, may make a loss.

But the scientific dairy man does not take that risk, nor let his
cattle use up this fodder by wandering over the fields in search of
tid-bits of grass or clover, or, goaded by the flies, trampling more
grass than they eat and wasting their manure.

He keeps the cows in cool sheds, feeds them on cut fodder, and saves
every ounce of the manure.

The modern cow is a ruminating machine for producing milk and cares
little for exercise and needs little. To exploit the cattle as
employers exploit the factory hands, he gives the cows a cool, shady
place and food, and they stand there all day long to their profit
and his.

(United States Agricultural Bulletin No. 22 says: "The New Jersey
Experiment Station has been conducting a practical trial in soiling
dairy cows for a number of years past, and finds that complete
soiling is entirely practicable, i.e. that green foliage crops may
serve as the sole food of the dewy herd, aside from the grain
ration, without injury to the animals and with a considerable saving
in the cost of milk.

"Under the soiling system a large number of animals can be kept upon
a given acreage and by allowing open-air exercises in a large yard
or pasture the practice has been demonstrated as entirely feasible
for dairy animals.