548 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



We find the corn crib at a distance from the hos: Dlatform or feed 

 yards, requiring the carrying of tlioiisands of bushels of corn through 

 deep snow and mud, when it might have been shoveled. We find that 

 slops and water are carried in buckets to troughs through barbed wire 

 fences, where, with proper piping it might be made to go bv it« own pres- 

 sure. With up-to-date machinery and practical arrangement of buildings 

 and yards, there ought not to be any water pumped by hand, grain 

 bundles, hay or straw pitched, slops carried in buckets or corn in, 

 baskets, or manure spread by hand. 



To further reduce expenses on a hundred and sixtv acre farm and 

 where six horses are kept, is to work one set of four-horse machinery. 

 It is cheaper and less annoying, or in other words, more profitable to 

 keep a team than a man. 



With hornless cattle, which can be handled like sheep or hogs, we 

 are today enabled to greatly economize in space of yards, troughs and 

 sheds, in their care and shelter. With this advantage, the buildings can be 

 grouped more closely, space and distance reduced, which implies a cor- 

 responding reduction of time and labor. 



With a capacity for a large surplus of feed, the farmer who, un.ler 

 ordinary circumstances, is forced to buy in times of shortage and high 

 prices, will now be changed into a seller, always selling in times of 

 scarcity and high prices, and storing in years of plenty. There will be 

 no need of making hay stacks and incurring waste during a heavy hay 

 crop like the last two summers. The great waste to hay in stacks would 

 more than have naid for building barns and sheds higher. The hay 

 stack should soon be a thing of the past. 



We have also reached the period of economic agriculture where we 

 can not afford to waste our straw. 



BuildingSf should be grouped to give the cattle yard protection, viz: 

 breaking the north and west winds completely, with no gaps for puffs 

 or eddies. Many of our barley sheds that might have been made to give 

 a sunny protection to cattle in winter, stand alone, a cold and gloomy 

 barrack, giving no return for the investment other than to hold barley 

 one month in the year. With no other use than this they become a poor 

 investment, and cattle prefer the south side of a straw stack to a chilly 

 building of this kind. They can be built to admit the sun nn the south 

 side, with feed and litter above, and make an ideal winter resort for all 

 kinds of live stock. In case of such a building, large doors for the en- 

 trance of the manure wagon should be made on the oonosit.e side of the 

 cattle entrance, to avoid the muddy or rough frozen cattle yard. Further- 

 more, I would provide all feeding places for loose cattle with a self-sup- 

 plying hay rack, which requires filling only once or twice a week and 

 can be closed during mid-day, or when not needed, by hanging doors. 



For large and wide hay-mows, I would recommend hay chutes, four 

 by four feet, directly under the hay carrier track and mounted by a hay 

 dump which can throw the hay at an angle into the adjoining partitions. 

 This will be a labor-saving device, inasmuch as the spreading of long 

 hay in a superheated haymow is another feature ihat is driving men and 

 boys from the farm. 



