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d show in your work? Any or all of them would impair your efficiency and lessen your ability.'"

SUGGESTIONS FOR CONSTRUCTING A BARN.

Since there is so much information available concerning construction of barns, it is not necessary for me to discuss it here except to criticize the standard forms. On most farms at hay-making time there is no time to haul hay to the dairy barn so it is stacked in the field and hauled in during the winter. Many large dairy barn hay mows are constructed at a great deal of expense and stand empty most of the time in this climate. Before building large, expensive barns it might be well to consult those who have built to see how they are getting along. On an average farm I would suggest a one story shed for the cows built as a lean-to or butting up against a hay shed. This hay shed need not be very large.

In most expensive barns there is installed a litter-carrier that runs on a track. If I were going to use a litter-carrier at all I would have the thing so that it could be let down below the level of the gutter and shove the manure down the gutter into it. This means would save all the liquid manure which is more valuable and would save the effort required to lift the manure with a shovel. When full the carrier could be hoisted, run on the track, and dumped into the wagon or wherever desired. But why use a carrier? Why not have the gutters run through the side of the barn and a wagon or manure spreader standing beneath? It is very easy to push the manure from ten cows down the gutter. Two gutters could run into one wagon which would be left standing outside of the barn on lower ground. The barn could either stand on a side hill or a place could be dug to run the wagon into. If hogs are to work over the manure, a concrete basin should be constructed to hold it.

The feed trough should be so made that it may be used to water the cows during cold weather.

MILKING

The cow's milk is partly manufactured in the udder at the time it is being drawn. The process is like digestion and is interfered with by any nervous tension or shock. The prick of a pin that will make a cow jump at the time of milking has been known to greatly reduce the butterfat of the milk given and at the same time to reduce the supply. Shepherd dogs that go after cows are likely to perform their labor at a very high cost in milk. A milk stool used as a weapon knocks a lot of money out of the farmer's pocket. A rough milker who irritates a cow causes much trouble also. If I were to judge a dairyman by just one thing I could tell most about him by noticing how well the cows liked to have him milk them. Where a cow has to dance to the jerking of rough hands and listen to profanity of the milker, that is plenty of information to decide that on that farm dairying does not pay. There are few cows that will treat a milker any better than he treats them.

For sanitary reasons I do not believe in milking with wet hands, but if a cow's udder is caked, the best cure that I know is to draw the milk into the hands very slowly and rub it into the caked udder until it is absorbed through the skin. I do not know or care why, but there is something about a cow's milk that is good for her caked udder when applied to the outside. One treatment of an hour's duration, milking the milk a stream at a time and working it into the caked udder, is often sufficient to cure even bad cases. Cow's teats should never be allowed to get sore, for clean milk can not be produced from sore, bleeding teats. It may be necessary to apply antiseptic medicines when they are sore, but a good way to keep the teats soft and pliable so the cow will not be irritated by milking is to take the last streams or two in the udder, milk it into the hand and use it to rub into the teat. The solids in the last streams of milk are about one-half butterfat and this greases the teat with the best kind of grease that I know.

Having employed a great many men on the farm I have found from experience that two out of three do not know how to milk. Of these, some can be taught but many are not worth bothering with. Many are too rough and many do not seem to be able to get all the milk from the udder. To get all the milk from one quarter of the udder the milker should use both hands, using one hand above the teat to squeeze the milk into the teat and with the other hand milk it into the pail.

MILK PRODUCTS

Every milk producer should make some study of the principal products that are made from milk, for such information may help to market it to a better advantage.

Figuring that butter contains 80% fat for the minimum which allows for the maximum amount of water, the following amount may be obtained from 100 pounds of milk:

The average cream sold tests about 30% butter-fat, so on the average the farmer has left about 86 pounds or a ten-gallon can of skim milk for every 100 pounds of 4% milk.

I can prove to you from experiments published in Henry & Morrison's "Feeds and Feeding" that skim milk is worth only $.08 a hundred pounds when corn meal is worth .00 a hundred, and I can prove that skim milk is worth $.31 a hundred pounds when corn meal is worth .00 a hundred. In fact when an experimenter undertakes to prove a thing he has very easy sailing if he can line up conditions to suit the proposition he intends to prove. The trouble with most experiments on this subject has been that they are apparently planned to be used as arguments for the purpose of increasing the feeding of skim milk and they do not undertake to solve the real question involved.

Every one knows that corn alone is too unbalanced a ration to feed to hogs profitably. Where it is endeavored to show that skim milk has a very high value, one bunch of hogs is fed corn alone, and to compare with it another bunch is fed corn and a small amount of skim milk. Let those who are satisfied with the information that can be obtained by such an experiment use it and I will have no dispute with them. But for most of us the question is whether we should feed alfalfa to the cow and the cow's milk to the pig or let the pig eat his own alfalfa. A hog's ration may be balanced with alfalfa hay or with alfalfa or rape pasture. The question is whether milk and corn makes as cheap a gain as alfalfa and corn. It is very difficult to find experiments that answer this question and it is the most practical one in the world. If it is good sense to use the cost of producing pork on dry corn alone as the basis of getting at the value of milk, it is also good sense to use skim milk alone as the basis of figuring the value of grain. In an experiment published by Henry & Morrison on page 597, where little pigs weighing only twenty-five pounds were used and which are capable of making cheaper gains on milk than older hogs because they have smaller bodies to maintain, it took 2,739 pounds of skim milk to make one hundred pounds of gain. But where 233 pounds of grain were fed with 935 pounds of skim milk there was also a gain of one hundred pounds. Figuring now as they do who would set the value of milk by the cost of feeding dry grain, we will use skim milk as a basis of figuring. If skim milk is worth $.30 a hundred, corn is worth .32 a hundred. This is the same line of reasoning as is used when in an experiment reported on page 598, if corn is worth $.01 a pound we find that skim milk is worth $.30 a hundred. All they prove is that a hog must have something besides corn or milk. Corn is the cheapest hog feed but it is too unbalanced a diet to get the best results when fed alone. A small amount of skim milk or something else will balance the diet. According to reports published by Henry & Morrison on page 598 it will be noticed that 585 pounds of skim milk reduced the amount of grain required to produce 100 lb. growth by 179 pounds. If corn is worth $.01 a pound and we figure on that basis, skim milk is worth $.31 a hundred pounds. But notice what happens when the amount of skim milk is increased beyond what is needed to supply the elements which corn lacks. When the amount of skim milk is increased by 463 pounds more, the amount of corn meal eaten was only reduced by 56 pounds, so that for the first 585 pounds the farmer was getting $.31 but for the next 463 pounds he was getting only $.12 a hundred pounds, and when the skim milk was again increased by 849 pounds the amount of corn meal required was only reduced 71 pounds and this figures down the last batch of skim to only about $.08 per hundred pounds. These experiments prove that we must keep somewhere near a balanced ration but do not prove anything regarding a definite value of skim as a feed.

What your skim milk is worth on the farm depends altogether on how much it is needed to balance the diet in hog feeding operations. It is of much more value for little pigs than for larger hogs that are more capable of digesting grasses. Professor Henry says, "Pigs fed skim milk and grain gained nothing from pasture. Grazing stimulates the appetites of pigs getting grain but no milk and they eat more grain and make larger and more economical gains." So we see that pigs will pass up pasture for milk and that when milk is fed to pigs on pasture it replaces the use of pasture so that it does not do much good to pasture hogs that are fed milk. Experiments reported on page 614 show that pigs on alfalfa pasture require 344 pounds of grain to gain one hundred pounds and that on rape pasture only 340 pounds are required.

Different experiments always vary slightly as to the amount of grain required to make a certain growth. But taking the most advantageous ration that we can prepare with milk and corn as shown by these experiments, we may conclude that something like 300 pounds of grain and 500 pounds of milk will make one hundred pounds of growth on one hundred pound hogs, and that about 350 pounds of grain fed to hogs on pasture will make the same amount of growth. Let each farmer figure out what pasture and grain cost him and he can get approximately the real value of skim milk. For large hogs milk will be worth less than here shown. For smaller hogs it will be worth more.

It may be interesting to know the cost per pound of skim milk solids figured at different prices, but the chemical analysis we are not considering. One hundred pounds of milk usually contains about 9.25 pounds of solids. If 100 pounds of skim milk is worth $.20, one pound of dry matter would be worth $.0216 and a ton would be worth .20. At $.40 a hundred, one pound of dry matter would be worth $.0432 and a ton would be worth .40. At $.50 a hundred, one pound of dry matter would cost $.0540 and one ton cost 8.00.

MARKET MILK

A can large enough to hold 100 pounds of water would hold 103.2 pounds of average milk at 60 degrees, 103.6 pounds of skim milk, or 90 pounds of pure butterfat. Cream weighs less than water. The butterfat in milk is in the form of little particles or globules, which float around in the milk. In Holstein milk they are small, in Jersey milk they are larger. Cream is simply milk containing a large number of particles of fat.

Milk from cows known to be diseased, or from cows fifteen days before coming fresh can not legally be sold. After freshening, milk can be sold as soon as it attains a normal condition. It is illegal to sell milk to which water or any other substance has been added, or milk which has been exposed to disease-producing bacteria, or milk that has been stored, handled or transported in an unclean or unsanitary manner.

The public is well aware of this fact, and the demand for dairy products would be immeasurably increased if thousands of people did not feel an aversion to drinking milk because as they say, "It's so dirty." We can not go to the public and ask all we would like to have unless we, in turn, give them just what they want. The public wants clean milk and I believe that if milk improves in quality the public will use more of it. No person with dirty hands should ever milk a cow and use the milk for human food. A cow's udder should be washed. The hair on the udder and flanks should be clipped short, and to prevent dust and hair from getting into the milk, her flanks and udder should be slightly dampened before milking. A gunnysack cut up in pieces about 14 inches square makes a very good towel on which to dry the udder and the milker's hands. A clean towel should be used for each milking.

The cleanliness of milk is usually judged by filtering a small amount through a disc of cotton. This is called the sediment test. This test, in a measure determines the amount of filth and foreign matter which milk contains. Sufficient straining will make most any milk so that it will show a clean record on the sediment test. But remember that a strainer acts as a sort of pulverizer. Milk running through a strainer gradually dissolves and washes away the particles until they are so thoroughly in solution that we can not get them in a clarifying machine. We would prefer milk strained through a metal strainer only, but in many localities health departments require that it be filtered through cloth or cotton. Where this is required we oppose no objections. The greatest difficulty with cloth strainers is that they do not get washed clean enough. A farmer usually rinses out his cloth in cold water and hangs it up to dry. Sour strainers are about the first thing we look for on a farm where the people have been having trouble keeping milk sweet.

Absorbent cotton is all right, providing no cloth is used with it, but that it be held between metal straining discs, or that the cloth be thrown away each time with the cotton. Since to throw away cotton strainers each time is expensive, I do not think the system is practical for general use. It is easier and far better to keep dirt from getting into the milk than to let everything go in and then try to get it all out again.

Milk utensils should be sterilized. This may be done by the use of a chlorine solution called Bacilli-Kill, by boiling water, or by the direct rays of the sun. Most sterilization is not perfect and even the dust particles in the air contain enough bacteria to, in a measure, re-seed any surface. Bacteria can not grow without moisture. If utensils are not washed perfectly and food particles are left for bacteria to grow on, there will immediately start a new development from the re-seeding that will take place after the sterilization. Tin cans can not be washed well enough to make them perfectly free from foodstuffs on which bacteria may live. When milk dealers put cream in cold storage, expecting to hold it sweet for as long as two months they use cans that have never been used before. A metal surface is rough and I know of no way to wash a milk can as perfectly as a milk bottle. The milk utensils should be thoroughly cleaned with washing powder, rinsed thoroughly with boiling water, then carefully dried. In the operation of cleaning cans the most difficult thing to do in a factory is to get the can properly dried. When it cools down there is likely to be a certain amount of moisture deposited on the inside of the can and there is always enough food left on which bacteria may grow if the can is moist. In milk plants we sterilize all equipment just before using. Cans washed and sterilized at the plant and used on the farm twenty-four or thirty-six hours later become rancid because of being shut with moist air in them. It is our ambition to sometime be able to send cans to the farmers that will remain perfectly sweet, dry and sterile, even if they are kept closed for a week. But now we must confess to imperfection, and cans that get stale before being used are perhaps the greatest menace to our milk supply. If a farmer can set these cans in the sun with the lid off, it will help greatly. If he can scald them with boiling water just before he uses them, it will help even more.

Some farmers have great difficulty in delivering milk once a day and having it sweet when it arrives at the plant. We have kept a bottle of certified milk for more than three weeks in a refrigerator where the temperature is above forty degrees and at the end of that time it had not turned sour. Such results can be only obtained by experts, but it is not difficult to become expert enough to always be able to sell milk that is in a good marketable condition, delivered once a day.

EXPERIMENTS BEING TRIED OUT ON OUR DAIRY FARM.

On our farm we are equipping to produce certified milk. This will be a new business for us. When we have had more experience along this line we may write up the results for publication. However, none of our experiments are far enough along now for us to be justified in giving the results as final.

Those things which would probably be of greatest interest to farmers are our small grain elevator, the layout of machinery to shell corn, grind feed, cut and re-cut alfalfa and our facilities for handling manure. We use electric power which, so far as we know, is the most satisfactory power where it is available. The motor requires no firing up as does a steam engine, and no tinkering such as goes with the use of gasoline. The motors generally run when you want them to and as long as you want them to and give very little trouble.

Our system of hauling manure is probably more original than our arrangement for handling feed. We do not shovel the manure out of this barn, neither do we push it out. We wash it out with a two-inch stream of water. The gutters slope from the ends of the barn toward the center, being two feet deep at the center of the barn and one foot deep at the ends. Over these gutters we have cast-iron grates to prevent a cow from slipping down. A ten-inch tile leads from the gutter to a large cess-pool outside of the barn and from this cess-pool we pump the sewerage along a ridge to the highest ground of the farm and irrigate it down over the fields. We have an abundant water supply available, cheap power, and hope this plan will prove a practical means of handling manure. So far it has been a very easy matter to flush the manure from the gutters and our sewerage pump throws 200 gallons per minute through a four-inch pipe up the hill as far as we want to go. We use cut straw for bedding and run plenty of water in with the manure so the pump will not clog. The picture of the pump shown is taken from the catalogue of the American Well Works and does not represent our cess-pool but is similar to the outfit we use.

Our water pump requires a ten horse-power motor and will throw 150 gallons per minute. Besides a means of getting manure hauled out, we expect to do some irrigating in dry weather. While running both the pump at the well and the sewerage pump we require about ten kilowatts of current per hour. This costs us about five cents per kilowatt.

We have installed the King ventilating system. Where a large herd of cows are kept in a barn such a ventilating system is a great help. Our barn is warm and comfortable but not steamy and close.

These systems cost a good deal of money and may not all prove practical. We are not urging that our example be followed but will be glad to give any of our readers such data as we may have concerning the success of these operations. At our barn we prepare the feed for all of our delivery horses and we expect to keep sixty cows. The method of handling manure will eliminate most of the breeding places of flies. Since this milk will be used raw and is produced for babies especially, extra precautions are necessary in our case. These things we have taken into consideration when planning so expensive a layout. In a few months we will know more about these systems and in a few years we will have a conclusive test made. Those who wish to drop in occasionally to see how we are getting along will be welcome.

DIFFERENT POINTS OF VIEW

Even though I have a farm that at one time I went in debt for and which I paid for by milking cows, and even though I have spent more of my working years on a farm than in an office, I can not always pass as a farmer. At one time I attended a farmers' meeting where the city man was up for discussion and a fellow nudged me and said, "Old man, how do you like it? Haven't we got you city guys figured out about right?" I answered, "City people are just like country people in at least one respect. They are just as much inclined to think their own troubles are greater than any one else's."

Farmers sometimes speak of themselves as the producers, and so, too, do the labor union men. Even the business men at their meetings are inclined to pat themselves on the back and to take credit for a very liberal share in production. We all look at things from our own point of view. We have gone through certain experiences and have not experienced others. We can not all expect to be of the same opinion.

But we all have the ability to understand each other when we are given the chance to see things as other people see them, and it is this understanding which I hope to promote as I write this brief chapter. I write this not as a farmer but as a city man giving opinions gradually formed in several years as a city milk distributor.

To me all are producers alike. The man who sews the shoe for the miner who digs the ore that makes the plow that plows the field that raises the wheat that makes the bread that the grocer distributes, does what is just as important but no more so than any other man or woman in the long line which production takes. If one may insist that his task forms the foundation, another man may claim that his forms the roof. But what is the difference? Without whom can we well get along?

We hear much about the "middle man" who is considered a luxury or rather an extravagance that ought not to be permitted. Well, I am one of those middle men and the thing does not look that way at all to me. I think that all we do for the people--all the service we render, is worth what we get for it. We middlemen have our troubles and call ourselves producers and are not in any way conscious of being "parasites."

What economic laws apply particularly to one set of people but do not apply to others down the line? What makes one man's lot harder than that of another, and who really has the hardest row to hoe? What shall we do to the other fellow to keep him from crime and have justice? These are questions answered in as many different ways as there are people with different viewpoints. Do we doubt the patriotism of the club women in cities who decided to boycott eggs and milk to bring down the price just at the time when these commodities were very hard to produce and the price already too low for the cost? If we do, it is because we do not understand their viewpoint and their lack of information on which to form different conclusions.

A few years ago I often used a certain argument which now I do not use any more because now I am over on the other side, as they say. From the other side of the fence the proposition does not look at all the same. The argument is that the farmer sells his produce in town at the price the city man is willing to pay and then must buy at the price that the city man will sell for. Since the city man does all the price fixing the farmer gets the worst end of the bargain all of the time.

I have no doubt that various markets are juggled by speculators of various kinds and that there are many exploiters in cities who have their knives whetted for any one's meat they can get. The world has not yet worked out its complete salvation. We all have a few suggestions that we would not mind making to the party in power. But of this I feel sure, the majority of business men make their living by rendering service the same as do farmers. They are up against propositions that are a good deal alike. I have not noticed much difference. I have to pay my farmers a good or better bargain than they can get any where else. In the same way I must compete for labor. I must render the best service the customer can get for the money. After I do all of these things, if there is anything left I may have it, and my luck at different times is good, bad, and all shades between good and bad. All of us city business men would make more if we could. You can at least credit us with being ambitious, but more of us fail than do business men in the country.

At this time probably half of the factories in the United States are closed down, banks are practically all in a critical condition, stores are advertising merchandise at half price and yet no one seems to buy and the farmers' troubles need no description. What shall we do? Well, I know some things we should not do that I can illustrate with a story.

A man in Arizona looked down over a ledge of rocks on a cliff and saw several rattle snakes sunning themselves on a ledge thirty feet below. Having a small pistol he shot a bullet down among them. Immediately there started a battle at the end of which all the rattlesnakes were bitten. In a few minutes they were all dead. An examination showed that the bullet had apparently not hit any snake. The snakes had all lost their lives as a result of a misunderstanding.

I heard Major General Wood make a speech in favor of universal military training but his argument had a different meaning for me than he intended it should have. He argued that there will be war as long as people have honest differences of opinion--therefore always be prepared for war. To me it seems that since no amount of preparation and war equipment can insure peace we must prevent that honest difference of opinion. We must keep with all people a better understanding. Wars are misunderstandings and well meaning people murder each other because the misunderstandings are kept up with censorship and propaganda. People are armed with poisons more deadly than the rattlesnake and all will fight at the drop of the hat if they feel that they are wronged. What then brings any hope of things better? It is the spirit that says "Come let us reason together" that points the way to "Peace on earth, good will toward men."

There is one thing that all should remember and that is that we are all of us the public. There is no corporation "without a heart and without a soul" more heartless than the public. All men strive to do the thing the public wants most to have done for only those who please the public's fancy get paid for their efforts. The public pays no one interest on investment. It pays no one for time or effort spent. It pays for the service it wants at the time it wants it and all who misjudge the public demand may get nothing. Any new process or new invention puts many people out of business for the public turns coldly from the old to the new service which it more desires. If we produce too much of anything the price always goes below cost. Where there is an undersupply of any thing, there is the best market and the more profitable business. So it is that by paying or withholding the price this great Dame Public keeps all courting her favor and doing the things she wants most to have done. She wins with every winner and then taxes his income, and lets the loser lose alone.

But although we are all up against the same general laws that govern business there is a difference between farming and most other business. A contractor will build a building for us if we agree to pay a price that he figures will pay his cost plus a profit. Otherwise he will not do the work. Contracting is supposed to be a somewhat hazardous business but it is not so risky as farming for the builder knows before he starts what price he is to get. A farmer can not tell until he is ready to market his crop what the market will be. The farmer must pay the cost, hoping. Weather has a great deal to do with results in farming operations and that makes the business more risky.

Business men in cities as a rule can work much closer to their pay checks. This makes it possible for them to come much nearer a system of always getting cost plus a profit. Manufacturers usually aim to take orders ahead of their output so that knowing their cost and having their goods already sold at a profit leaves them comparatively clear sailing. How the farmer can get on the same basis I do not know.

But city business is not all a round of pleasure, for city competition is keen. If one farmer raises forty bushels of corn per acre and another can raise sixty, each receives compensation in proportion to his crop. But if one merchant had that much advantage over his competitor the unfortunate one would be put clear out of business. Customers to a merchant are as valuable as pigs are to a farmer and it is perfectly legal to get the other fellow's customers in broad daylight. So we in competitive business keep busier than some people think.

I have often been asked what I think of farmers' organizations. Well, most business men in other lines of business have associations. They usually result in some good. It is those who expect too much that are disappointed. So simple a thing as an organization can not cure all of the difficulties in farming. Some farmers in Kentucky organized to boost the tobacco market by agreeing among themselves to plant fewer acres. After the agreement many expected a high price for tobacco and planted more acres. This is about the kind of co-operation we all have learned to expect in associations where money interests are involved. These farmers were right, however, in realizing that in order to boost the market they had to limit the supply of the product. The law of supply and demand always works. It works to the advantage of him who can limit the supply or can increase the demand.

Let me tell you how a trust operates. There is an agreement to fix prices and production is limited to what will sell at the fixed price. Then there are fights made against any one outside of the combination who undertakes to produce that line of goods. The trust magnate knows well that to control a market he must limit the amount of goods for sale by combining to fight competition. Without that feature trusts would be harmless. A trust is a "combination in restraint of trade"--a fighting organization. Common business men are not afraid to compete with trusts. It is always the trust that is afraid. To compete means to race. Trusts always want to hamstring the fellows against whom they are racing.

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