84 AGRICULTURE OF MAINE. 



central section of my buildings is as abundant in windows as 

 this room. Light is death to the germs of disease and we put 

 in all the light we could. Light also tends to increase physio- 

 logical activity. A cow will eat more and do better in a light 

 barn. The manure is run out with a miner's barrow which is 

 self-dumping, and tipped over on end, emptying by gravity into 

 a stone pit, and it is drawn out by gravity, so that the work 

 is quickly done. On the whole I think the offal is handled as 

 quickly and economically, the loading in a postless cellar and 

 the backing into a square cellar being considered, as would be 

 the case in the old type of barn. And by this system the hay 

 is in no wise injured in its palatableness either by the odor of 

 the offal or the carbonic acid that comes from below, each 

 department being absolutely separate and economically handled. 

 If I should build again I think I should follow this plan. My 

 subject is so broad that I cannot discuss this matter further. 



I have in the barn high grade Holstein cows. So far as the 

 investigations and feeding experiments of America are con- 

 cerned, I think I have found that a pound of milk is made a 

 little cheaper from the Holstein than from any other breed, 

 although the Ayrshire makes a pound within a small margin of 

 the same cost; and if I were so situated that I wanted to move 

 from milk to butter quickly I would select the Ayrshire cow, as 

 a pound of butter is made almost as cheaply from the Ayrshire 

 as from the Jersey or Guernsey, and she is a cow which you 

 can move if you want to change your business from one product 

 to the other. I am not a butter producer, but so far as I have 

 secured the figures, a pound of butter is made very slightly 

 cheaper from the Guernsey than from the Jersey cow. The 

 larger animal might strike your fancy more, but either breed 

 will make a pound of butter cheaper than a milk breed. I will 

 not enter into the discussion of the dairy cow any farther than 

 to observe that she must be bred for the highest limit of produc- 

 tion; and this must not be a matter of guess work or accident, 

 but of prolonged and careful research. 



I turn now to the question of organizing crops for the farm, 

 and I shall have to feel my way through this more rapidly than 

 usual. I am pursuing, as was said, intensive farming. I am 

 a very decided apostle of aggressive farming, and this view is 



