576 BOAED OF AGRICULTURE, 



pinning them at the bottom? If you did not pin it very tight it would 

 not burn very well. It would not jump over. It is just the same with 

 the soil. The moisture could not jump over. If you keep the soil loose 

 it will not jump over, and therefore the water will remain in the soil. 

 This can be proven in the laboratory conclusively; just how it is, how 

 much it is, and why it is. I might go on with other illustrations, but I 

 will just give one more. 



Why does millc sour? There is no one but knows that it does sour. 

 We have experimented with this milk and we find that it sours because 

 something gets into it after it leaves the cow. The milk would keep sweet 

 just as it comes from the cow, but something gets into it— a germ gets 

 into it— and then it sours. These germs are little forms of plant life. 

 They change the sugar of the milk into acid and then you say that the 

 milk is sour. The only way to keep milk from souring is to keep the 

 germs out. Put milk down in some cold place and it will not sour. It 

 would remain a long time before there would be enough germs there to do 

 any harm. We have kept milk sweet twenty-one days. When milk 

 sours one of two things must be true, and that is that it has been too 

 warm, or that it was not kept as clean as it should have been. To keep 

 milk sweet it must be kept clean. When the milk is kept cold the germs 

 cannot multiply, therefoi-e they do not change the milk. 



This brings to my mind the point illustrating the application of 

 science. One of my professors once defined science as truth. If you 

 know the science of anything you know the truth about it. Now when 

 we make butter in the creamery— and we make a lot of it — and when 

 milk comes into the creamery that is not over twenty-four hours old that 

 is sour, I know that one of two things is sure, and that is, as I have 

 said, that it either has not been cold enough to keep the bacteria out. 

 or it wasn't kept clean enough. Even if there are a few germs in the milk 

 and it is set in a cold place these little germs cannot do much; they cannot 

 grow very fast. Here is an illustration of the application of college train- 

 ing in commercial practice. You can carry that right onto the farm. The 

 college furnishes the principles and you can make the application in 

 everyday life. It also furnishes a certain amount of practice. The young 

 man who takes work in stock breeding is able to tell the attributes of a 

 perfect beef. He can pick out a perfect animal. We do not learn through 

 our eyes only, but we learn through our eyes and hands; therefore this 

 teaching is supplt-montod by actual praclice. The boys are taken" out into 

 the showing room. The cattle are brought in there. There are a certain 

 nymber of points for them to notice. For instance they give five for a 

 perfect head; so much for a perfect neck, etc. They will soon learn to 

 pick out the faults. They may see that he is too narrow between the eyes, 

 and cut him a point on that. Little by little they are schooled in these 

 regards until they are able to go out and pick out a perfect animal. When 

 a number of cattle are being judged our boys can put the first three right 



