122 AGRICULTURE OF MAINE. 



SO low that the water freezes in our barns, but that does not 

 trouble us half as much as to have them close and bad smelling 

 in the morning. We want the pure air, anyway, and we under- 

 take to get it. 



One of our barns, which I think on the whole is the most sat- 

 isfactory and the plan of which I think I should follow if I were 

 to build again, contains pens seven feet by nine. No cow is tied 

 up ; they are all in pens. The pen has no floor, but is on gravel, 

 on the top of which we put four or six inches of sand and on the 

 top of that planing-mill shavings. The sand is removed as often 

 as need be, sometimes once a month, sometimes not as often. 

 The pens are cleaned out every day and fresh shavings put on. 

 The cows are loose all the time, and while it is not easily sus- 

 ceptible of proof, I believe that our cows are a great deal better 

 off for that treatment. The cows are in the barn the most of 

 the time the year around. In the summer they are only let out 

 for two or three hours a day in any sort of pleasant weather, and 

 they get exercise in the pens, which I think is better for them. 



We have a manger that turns up to the floor when the cows 

 are not feeding from it, so that no filth can get into it. It is 

 hinged, and when the cows are through feeding it is turned up, 

 and by loosening a hook it drops back. 



Our men at the home farm milk fifteen cows each per day. The 

 milk as soon as drawn is carried to a tank where it is strained, 

 and flowing through a tube into the milk room passes over a 

 Star cooler, through which is pumped brine from a refrigerating 

 plant at a temperature of from ten to twenty degrees. This 

 cools the milk to about 36 degrees. By the time it is in the 

 bottle and the stopper is placed in the bottle, it will be just about 

 40 degrees. That milk, so treated, will keep almost indefinitely. 

 The only complaint we have had during the past two years on 

 the question of souring was from some of our customers who 

 said they did not know how they could sour the milk. Of course 

 we have one advantage that cannot come to the ordinary farmer. 

 We are situated almost in the middle of the city. The center of 

 Newton is said to be on its circumference ; /. e., there are thirteen 

 villages served bv stations on the circuit railroad. We serve 

 seven of these different villages, all within the same municipal- 

 ity, and in no case does the team go more than 3/2 miles from 



