454 ANNUAL REPORT OF THE Off. Doc. 



,vuiir bleed suitable to your taste if you are ricli, for busiuess if you 

 want to malve a livinii-, then feed niid case must be daily bauduiaids 

 to the business. 



Balance the ration for the cow's stomach, not according to the 

 whim or flea in your brain. There is a difference between a cow's 

 stomach and the chemist's crucible, but it is surprising how close 

 they do agree after all. The arithmetic of the balanced ration may 

 be a little too large for onr particular dairy and not large enough 

 for the other. The ratio of the ration is all right but the bulk may 

 be more than the one cow can consume and not quite enough for 

 the other. 



It is pretty generally known that this paper has not much to say 

 in favor of pasturing dairy cattle. The soiling system has so much 

 in its favor, that a brief description of the practice at Flonrtown 

 will not be out of place. 



Cut hay is fed three times a day to every animal on the 15 acre 

 farm that is old enough to eat it throughout the year. To feed 

 green roughage, either from the field or silo exclusively, is recom- 

 mended by some, and especially in summer time, is supposed to be 

 the proper food for a dairy cow; and June is generally brought 

 forward in argument for the practice as being the best month in 

 all the year for a great flow of milk. 



But the modern dairy is as different from the old time custom of 

 keeping cows as the modern steel mill is from the old time black- 

 smith shop. The dairy business of to-day is a factory. The cows 

 are as artificial as the looms, and they are harder worked than any 

 looms in the world, making twenty-four hours in a day for over three 

 hundred days in a year, Sundays not excepted. 



Hay by practice seems to be as essential for a dairy animal as coal 

 is for the monstrous boilers to run the looms in a mill. 



Clean stalls, clean cows and clean dairy barns can only be kept 

 clean by keeping the cows' droppings just right. Green feed alone 

 keeps the bowels too loose and has disgusted many who wish to 

 adopt the soiling system. Hay, and the proper use of concentrated 

 foods, when fed with judgment, keep the cows' droppings just right, 

 and consequently the animals are clean and the dairy barn is clean in 

 summer as well as in winter. 



The Agrostologist from Washington, 1). C, an official of the U. S. 

 Government, recently visited the farm and dairy at Flourtown, in- 

 tending to remain from one train to another, but instead- of doing 

 the small farm and dairy in so short time, spent a day and a half 

 observing the methods in use. 



The manure gutter was of particular interest, so much so that a 

 photograi)h of the manure was taken because of the uniformity of 

 the droppings. It was a revelation, as the Agrostologist expressed 



