SIXTH ANNUAL YEAR-BOOK— PART V. 391 



The Hoard stall, with modifications, I am about to recommend, but I 

 should leave it slat\York as far as possible to allow circulation of air and 

 free admission of sunlight. Until som_e better system is suggested use the 

 King system of ventilation in some of its modified forms. I have come 

 here from Michigan not to repeat a lot of well known facts but to call 

 your attention to the fact that no man has a right to produce milk for 

 sale or use in his own family without adopting the modern methods of 

 keeping the cows healthy and comfortable. He is a criminal if he does. 

 The haphazard way of doing things that was allowable and which we 

 could wink at in the days of our ignorance can not be tolerated today. 

 Nor will it do for us to say that our best dairymen are obeying the 

 laws of hygiene. The great mass of the milk consumed is produced by 

 the great mass of the farmers, few of whom are awake either to their 

 responsibility or possibility. It is true in Iowa as it is true in Michigan 

 that the measure of the quality of the milk supplied to the factory is not 

 the best the farmer can produce, but the worst the factory will receive. 

 I am sounding the tocsin therefore, hoping to reach through you the 

 ears of some of the masses to draw them to a better management of 

 their cows. 



ADVANTAGE OF SEEING THE PATRON. 



Turning now from the health of the cow to the details of the care of 

 the milk, I may be entering upon a territory where a divergence of ideas 

 and methods may lead to discussion. In the first place the only kinds of 

 stalls I would permit in a stable under my control would be the Bidwell 

 or the Hoard type. 



'A modification of the Bidwell stall in use at the Michigan Agricul- 

 tiiral College keeps the cows both clean and comfortable. 



A recent visit to the farm of Mr. Lillie at Cooperstown, Michigan, 

 revealed how the Deputy Dairy and Food Commissioner of the state, 

 a distinguished newspaper writer, a graduate of the Agricultural college 

 and, withal, a first class dairyman, kept his cows. I reached the barn in 

 the early morning after the cows had been milked but before the stables 

 had been cleaned out. (I may step aside to say that a dairyman recently 

 insisted that the stables should always be cleaned otit before the cows 

 were milked. My experience in handling a large herd has not led me to 

 agree to that proposition. If the herd is large enough to afford a regular 

 caretaker night and day. I should adopt this method, but with a hundred 

 cows or less I should stir up the manure as little as possible until the 

 milking was done and the milk removed from the stable. I noted that 

 Mr. Lillie was of the same opinion.) I found the cows arranged in two 

 rows with heaas pointing outward to the east and west with an alley-way 

 running down the center of the barn between gutters, so that the manure 

 could be pitched directly on the wagon which should haul it to the field. 

 The cows therefore faced away from a central alley. The feeding alley 

 in front of each row of cows was narrow, the center alley wide, forcing 

 the cows comparatively near to the outside wall. The stalls used were a 

 modification of the Hoard pattern with a V-shaped watering trough ex- 

 tending from one end of the barn to the other in front of each row of 



