DAIRY MEETING. 73 



exercise. We may shut ourselves up, even in the State of 

 Maine, in a room which is kept at the right temperature, we may- 

 eat just the proper quaHty of food, and yet when spring time 

 comes we are not very well prepared to work. There is a muscu- 

 lar tone that must be kept up to maintain health. I wish some one 

 was able to tell how, under all climatic conditions, we could keep 

 the cow up to the tone of nervous energy with food and air. I 

 am only giving my opinion from observation, and that is, that 

 with all of our patent systems of ventilation, we must give the 

 cow some exercise in some way, or I know that I am called in 

 when spring comes to help her out. I am coming more and 

 more to the conclusion that a good covered barnyard with some 

 north windows in it, makes about the best ventilation we have. 

 Then we can turn the cow out unless the weather is too cold. 

 You may have it cold enough here so that it would not be policy 

 to turn her out. Down in New York we have heard these matters 

 discussed for years. Perhaps it is the pioneer state for dis- 

 cussing them, but of all the barns in the state of New York, 

 some of which cost half a million dollars, the best to my mind 

 is one that cost $584 for lumber and the farmer himself and his 

 hired man built it. He is a prominent breeder, a winner at St. 

 Louis, Clayton Taylor of Collins Center, N. Y. He has nothing 

 expensive. He simply puts his cattle into the stancion long 

 enough to milk them, and then they go out into a yard and I 

 never yet have seen a healthier herd than his. I am coming 

 more and more to the conclusion that we can practice some of 

 Prof. Gowell's hen house ventilation in our barns to better 

 advantage than if we tried to get in too many new f angled ideas. 

 The professor said that 1} pounds of protein was required for 

 10 or 12 pounds of milk. I would like to know how we are to 

 furnish the cow with that amount of protein in the foods we get, 

 using the milk standard as our gauge. We know that in the 

 case of some of our concentrated foods on the market, if we 

 feed them alone we have trouble. If we feed cottonseed meal 

 or linseed meal without mixing it with some other class of foods, 

 we will have the cow off in her digestion. In my observation 

 it is a great deal easier to unbalance the system of the cow or 

 her digestion by overdosing with protein than with carbohy- 



