DAIRY MEETING. 113 



hard for them. Take the apple crop. Some years of course 

 you get a pretty high price for your apples, get enough to sat- 

 isfy even the most exacting; and the next year perhaps you will 

 not get enough to pay expenses. It is a hard matter for a man 

 to carry over from one year to another funds enough to pay his 

 running expenses and keep his farm in condition. Now I have 

 to suggest another method, which is practiced to some extent,, 

 and that is, have a dairy which you carry along for the support 

 of your family in hard years, to depend upon to pay your run- 

 ning expenses, and a diversified farm crop. For a cash crop, 

 it seems to me that the farmer should depend upon at least three 

 or four crops. The objection to this is, first, that it requires a 

 knowledge of the crops that you are raising. I will suggest that 

 there are four crops that it is desirable to raise for money crops. 

 The first is hay. I do not mean by that to sell hay promiscu- 

 ously. If you have ten or twelve acres under cultivation, two 

 or three in squash, two or three in cabbage, three or four in 

 potatoes, and perhaps three or four in corn for your stock, the 

 next year 3^ou have the grain that grows on that ground to feed 

 your stock, with your corn, and you do not have to go into the 

 channels of commerce to buy grain to carry your stock along. 

 The instant you reach out to buy something, you are not only 

 paying the man who produced the crop, but you are also paying 

 every man who handled that crop, and I do not think that is 

 profitable. I think it is nothing but fair to ourselves to produce 

 practically all the grain we feed. I am not going to say all of 

 it because that is impossible. But if you have good productive 

 land under cultivation so that you can seed grain, — oats and 

 barley, you can raise a large proportion of your grain. I think 

 barley should be raised more than it is, and wheat to some ex- 

 tent. Of course the weevil in the old time drove our fathers out 

 of the wheat business, but wheat is a very good feed, especially 

 for hens. It works in very nicely for the young stock. Now, 

 as I have said, I am going to suggest that you raise four money 

 crops, — first, hay; second, potatoes; third, cabbage; and fourth, 

 squash. Seed your ground, lo or 12 acres, to grain, together 

 with clover and herdsgrass. Next year cut your clover for feed 

 and the next year sell your timothy. There isn't a big lot of 

 waste in selling timothy, especially if it sells at a high price. 

 A man can aiTord to sell timothy, even on a dairy farm, at $20. 

 It is not a valuable feed for the dairy. It sells well in the mar- 



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