'j(i AGRICULTURE OF MAINE 



but never by more. And by opening these curtains and having 

 the pure air and the sunshine come in through the day, we can 

 keep our animals in the pure, dry air. I am frank to say that 

 I have not much faith in the systems of ventilation advocated 

 so much. I know it is true that the carbonic acid settles to the 

 bottom, but is it possible for us to have the air in the stable 

 where our animals are moving around so still that the lower air 

 is the poisonous layer? I believe that we should get purer air 

 with the open barns. 



Dr. C. D. Woods. I have certainly been very much interested 

 in this discussion, and believe that we as Maine dairymen must 

 ^ive attention to these points. We have been studying upon 

 them for years, and still the advantage of our getting together 

 is very great, in stimulating us to do a little better in our prac- 

 tices than we have been doing. There are certain questions of 

 ventilation, of breeding and feeding, which are still important 

 to us. We have not solved them all. We have problems of 

 feeding today that come home to us with new force, because 

 our conditions have so wonderfully changed in five years. I 

 shall try to talk to you a little tomorrow about our commercial 

 feeding stuffs and the state of the markets in connection with 

 them. I believe that here in Maine, where we have been using 

 cottonseed so much (and in my opinion we are the largest users 

 of it according to cow population of any state in the Union) we 

 have used it successfully. We have had very little trouble that 

 can be traced directly to the use of cottonseed. I believe that 

 Mr. Ellis, when he commenced to talk to you about foods rich 

 in protein and directed your attention to cottonseed and gluten, 

 w^hich then could be procured readily, was on the right track, 

 and much of our successful dairying is due right to that one 

 article, cottonseed meal. We are so far away from the markets 

 that when we look into them for something to feed we must get 

 something that we can procure in a pretty concentrated form. 

 We are a long distance from where these by-products, many of 

 them, are manufactured. But if we are to use cottonseed meal, 

 we must feed it with brains ; and yet it does not take as much 

 brains to feed it as to feed corn meal. I would rather turn a 

 green man loose with cottonseed meal and a cow than with corn 

 meal and a cow. I am rather inclined to think that the com- 



