124 AGRICULTURE OF MAINE.. 



year it gave us not more than one-third of a reasonable return, 

 and last year not more than 50 per cent. As we had 230 acres 

 in corn, this is a material item with us, and you can readily see 

 the reason why we must get an increased price for our milk, 

 unless we were making a large profit at the old price, which we 

 were not doing. 



The question of where to get cows was a very live one with 

 us. We think we have solved it by taking on outlying lands in 

 the town of Barre, Mass., about 65 miles from Boston, a very 

 fine grazing country, with heavy clay soil, and there keeping a 

 part of our cows and raising our young stock. We have also 

 an intermediate farm at Kendal Green in Weston, of 150 acres. 



In the production of our milk our process is this : we keep at 

 the Barre farm all our dry cows and young stock. As fast as 

 the cows come fresh, a car-load at a time, we ship them to the 

 West Newton farm. In the winter w^e use the Arms Palace car, 

 with good ventilation, so that there is no injury to the cows. 

 This costs us 25 cents a head more than the ordinary stock-car, 

 which is perfectly satistactory in warm weather. When the car- 

 load of cows reaches the West Newton farm, the 20 or 22 cows 

 giving the least milk are moved to the Kendal Green farm, and 

 the same number of cows giving the least there are shipped to 

 Barre that night. So there is a process of revolution with all 

 our cows, and the milch cows are at all of those farms at some 

 time during the year. This is far from being the ideal way, as 

 I think all cows should be kept in their own stanchions ; then if 

 there is any disease it can be controlled better. But we simply 

 cannot do this. At Barre we separate the milk and ship the 

 cream, which is pasteurized but not sterilized, to West Newton, 

 via Waltham, having the skim-milk for our calves, of which we 

 raise, at the present time, in the neighborhood of 80 or more a 

 vear. We had at the Barre farm last vear 160 heifers over four 

 months of age, but not yet with their first calf. We raised those 

 by the use of the skim-milk and, to a considerable extent, linseed 

 meal. I am not able to give the exact figures of the cost of 

 raising them, but I have approximate figures, and the cost to us 

 of raising those heifers to the age of 31 months, which w^as just 

 the average age that all our heifers came in in 190 1, was inside 

 of $40. 



