80 THIRTY-FOURTH ANNUAL REPORT OF THE 



a chimney. I said to him: "Uncle Billy, that chimney is not plumb." 

 He looked at it a moment and said: "Faith, it's more than plumb." 

 Some farmers lean backward. It is hard to make good profits when you 

 are out of plumb backward. Really, you had better lean forward. 



ANOTHER FALLACY. 



In the summer of 1901 we had the worst drouth in Wisconsin and all 

 over the west, we have ever seen. Milk at the creameries shrunk 30 to 

 60 per cent. A great proportion of farmers let the matter run without 

 any effort to help it. They said it would not pay to buy feed. They 

 had no summer silos and but little in the way of soiling crops, for 

 the drought hurt that as well as the rest. I happened to have 50 tons of 

 old silage left over. As soon as the cows commenced to shrink, this 

 silage was fed to them night and morning, say 15 pounds at a feed. 

 They held right up in their milk to the usual flow for that time of lacta- 

 tion. I made handsome money on the investment. One experience 

 was enough with me. I built last year a summer silo. I have neigh- 

 bors who haven't yet been punished enough. They are looking for the 

 saving grace of another drouth. Their cows have not yet recovered 

 from the ill effects of their refusal to feed when they should have fed. 



An old German friend of mine took a nice heifer to the county fair. 

 He was leading her home when I met him and asked: "Did you get a 

 premium?" He leaned wearily back against the heifer and said: "You 

 know vot I dinks?" "No." "Veil, I dinks dot if a man hafe de bestest 

 heifer in der vorld unde he go py der goundy fair und he got not a goot 

 head, den py shimminy he got not a premium." 



FALSE NOTIONS OF PRACTICALITY. 



Sometimes I think I am a good deal of a crank. I seem somehow 

 very much dissatisfied with the way a large proportion of men about 

 me are carrying on this business of dairying. My wife tells me to 

 let them alone. But at 'em I go whenever I get a chance. They seem 

 to measure themselves and the business so much by what I think are 

 false standards. They pride themselves on being "practical." They tell 

 me I am theoretical. I take them to my farm, show them my books, 

 tell them all of my mistakes, and then show a good profit. But still 

 they say, "that is not practical." 



Here is an example. I put King's system of ventilation into my 

 barn. It cost me $350. The stable is 142x36 and houses about 50 ani- 

 mals. The air in that stable changes every hour. The cow stalls 

 are of the Model Stall pattern. The cows look fine. They are in the 

 finest of condition, eyes bright and full of vigor, and they are averaging 

 over a pound of butter fat a day per cow after six months of milking 

 with the most of them, and 17 are two and three-year-old heifers. It is 

 now three years since the Model Stall, the ventilation system and that 

 herd of cows were brought together. Not a case of sickness, not a 

 case of garget or injured teats has occurred in that herd in those 



