JERSEY CATTLE. 



193 



thoir milk require. Tiiere may be good cellar cow stalls and cellar 

 milk rooms, but I have never come across cither one or the other. 

 In the case of cellar or basement cow stables, dampness is unavoid- 

 able, if not in mid-winter in the spring and fall ; foul, sicklv odors 

 are almost certain to be present ; and it is very diflicult to obtain all 

 the light desirable. Don't let your cows live in a cellar nor over one 

 either. Let the cow stable, if possible, be a foot or two above the 

 natural surface of the ground. Let the light come into this stable 

 if not on all four sides on two at least, including the south. Let 

 the windows be large and man3'. Let the stable have large venti- 

 lators xchich can never he closed. Let the manure be thrown or 

 wheeled out of the cow sta])le two or three times a da}'. Let the 

 cows feed out of boxes which can bo taken out and cleansed and 

 sunned and sweetened. Let the floor be whitened daily with 

 plaster. In other words let the stable be so made and so cared 

 for that the air inside it shall be as fresh and pure as the air 

 outside of it. 



In the same way it is necessary that the milk room should be 

 above ground to escape dampness, bad odors and darkness. It is 

 not an easy thing, it is true, to get a uniform temperature in nn 

 above ground milk room, and without a temperature which is 

 equable we lose in amount of butter ; but our first object is quality 

 rather than quantity — and the best butter can only be pi-oduccd in 

 an abundance of fresh, odorless air. Yet how many stables and 

 how many niilk rooms are absolutely odorless? Not many. How 

 much perfectly good butter is there? Not much. These things go 

 hand-in-hand. The prime conditions of the best liutter are clean 

 cows, clean food and drink and air for them, and clean utensils and 

 clean air for their milk. These conditions obtained, there is yet 

 much work to be done, but without these conditions for the founda- 

 tion our after woi-k is thrown away. The best form of cow stable — 

 the best for the farmer making over his old buildings and the best 

 for those who are building a new steading — is that which gives the 

 cows a moderate sized separate building; a l)uilding, however 

 simple, above ground, with no manure under it, no hay above it and 

 nothing but cows (and fresh air) in it. Let the hay barn he next 

 to the cow barn, on the north or west side if possible, but not 

 covering the whole of that side of tiie cow Itarn. Let tlie manure 

 shed or manure celhir be at the other end of the vow Itarn. In such 

 an arrangement as this, the hav and grain can easilv be hauled 



