DAIRY me;e;ting. 103 



as professor of agriculture at their State College, and he has 

 been in the department at Washington, D. C. for some five or 

 six years. And, with some 20 or 25 younger men, like myself, 

 he is conducting a campaign of investigation into practical farm- 

 ing affairs, studying the methods which are in vogue with the 

 best farmers that we can find through the country. By the best 

 farmers I do not mean the ones who are spending the most 

 money, who have the most elaborate equipment, but I mean 

 those who are making a profit, a little better profit this year than 

 last, who are building the land up so that the profit will not fall 

 off, but will gain slightly in subsequent years. We are studying 

 the methods of such farmers as that and the results that those 

 farmers can show. I was more or less familiar with New Eng- 

 land farming in the first place, as my home was in the north- 

 eastern corner of Massachusetts, and it is my privilege to follow 

 this work up in the New England States and New York. This 

 brings me primarily to the consideration of dairy questions, 

 especially the raising of crops for the feeding of dairy cows. 

 There are one or two general propositions that have become 

 very evident in the 2^ years that I have been travelling up and 

 down through this territory. One of them is that the weakest 

 point in New England agriculture (and this applies to Maine 

 and Massachusetts alike) is the mismanagement of grass land. 

 By the mismanagement I do not mean necessarily that we are 

 not raising enough grass; I mean that a good many times we 

 are trying to raise too much. We are not following out the 

 principles that Mr. Ellis has been pointing out to us for so many 

 years. We have not grasped the situation and understood what 

 it meant to us in dollars and cents. 



Closely associated with the mismanagement of grass lands 

 is the lack of a proper rotation. Mr. Ellis has just told you of 

 the rotation that he finds eminently serviceable and profitable, 

 and he told you how he had doubled and trebled his number of 

 cows on the acreage with which he started, by just sticking to 

 that plan. 



There is another principle which I think applies through this 

 same section, and that relates to the use of bam manure. This 

 is closely allied to the mismanagement of grass land. I think 

 it is a general principle that barn manure should be applied more 

 frequently. Of course, taking the same number of cattle, it 



