74 AGRICUL,TURE OF MAINE. 



if not always the ability, to stamp their young with the same 

 good qualities that came to them by right of inheritance. 



A year ago at the meeting of this society, when discussing 

 the source of the most valuable food supply for the cattle of 

 New England, I said, "I stand for grass.'" I stand for grass 

 today, and I also stand for pure air and exercise, for breeding 

 animals ; not such supplies of pure air as are fed in to them 

 through tubes while they are shut into air-tight boxes during 

 the whole winter. Such rooms, to be used in this way, are 

 being advocated by lecturers on stable ventilation all over our 

 Northern states. We have a similar system at the college, but 

 we rely on it only when the temperature falls to from lo to 30 

 decrees below zero — not once last winter and usuallv not more 

 than five or six days or nights during any w'inter. The rest 

 of the time the feed doors are open wide. The whole feeding 

 room or driveway is open to all out-of-doors, through the large 

 lattice-covered ventilators at the ridge of the barn. It does not 

 freeze much in this cattle room, but sometimes crystals of ice 

 show in the morning on the manure. 



The animals kept under these conditions do not have as 

 smooth coats and they may not give quite as much milk during 

 extreme weather, as when they are in warm rooms, but I believe 

 they are in far better condition to become the mothers and 

 the. fathers of the cows we are to do business with, than if they 

 were given artificial summer temperatures in winter, with the 

 withholding of an abundance of pure bracing air and moderate 

 exercise. 



I am aware that I am treading dangerous ground in saying 

 what I have, for it is known that animals can w^arm the rooms 

 in which thev live by the heat radiated from their own bodies 

 and hmgs and the rigors of our northern winters be avoided. 



T would use the system when necessary to keep the animals 

 comfortable, but I would not draw the line of discomfort at 

 above 32 degrees. Above that temperature in the room we 

 never close the shutters and rely on the ventilating tubes to 

 keep the air clean. 



Almost invariablv when I advocate the open air and cool 

 rooms for dairv cattle someone feels hurt and informs me that 

 he does not believe it necessary for cattle to go to the brook 



