544 BOARD OF AGRICULTUKE. 



The President: I will appoint Mr. Samuel B. Wood, Chairman, and 

 Mr. Burnsido and Mr. Shugart as members of the Auditing Com- 

 mittee. 



We have for our next paper, "Why I Keep Cows and a Silo on a Fruit 

 Farm," by Joe A. Burton. 



The Secretary: Nothing shows more the uncertainty of life than 

 getting up a program for a meeting in advance. The first man on the 

 program is unable to be present, but he has sent his paper. 



WHY I OPERATE A DAIRY AND A SILO ON A FRUIT FARM. 



JOE A. BURTON, 0RI.EANS. 



My farm contains 240 acres. Apple growing is my hobby, but only 

 about one-ninth of my farm is in orchard, a little more than 100 acres is 

 in bluegrass, the rest devoted to grain and clover. Now, how to realize 

 the most out of these crops with the labor and attention we care to give, 

 has determined our pursuits. Hog feeding is, and long has been, an im- 

 portant part of our operations. It pays us better than any other branch 

 of stock raising. It is a valuable adjunct to apple growing. The suc- 

 cessful orchard in our locality is on poor land made rich. The orchard is 

 the hog lot. The hog lot, as we operate it, is a rich place, made so by 

 concentrated feed given the hogs. Grass, alone, is not a successful hog 

 feed. They need a richer food. This we get in part out of our corn crop. 

 But ours is not a corn region, hence it is important to make concentrated 

 hog feed out of bluegrass and cornstalks. This we do through the agency 

 of our Jerseys. By this process we get a valuable by-product in the form 

 of cream. We realize about as much for this as we do for the main 

 product, the skimmed milk. I don't mean to advance the idea that the 

 analytical constituents of the skimmed milk are worth as much for feed 

 as the cream is to sell, but its action on the habits and life of the hog is 

 such that the final income is greater. With a milk ration our hogs do 

 well any time of year. It so shortens the fattening period that we realize 

 on the investment several times in a year. Grass, apples, milk and corn 

 make short and cheap work of the hog feeding. By the help of the dairy 

 we can fatten hogs on bluegrass and cornstalks. We do not operate our 

 dairy on the high pressure method. We correspond about to the man who 

 pi'oduces a 1,000 pound steer at two years old. We get about $35 a year 

 per cow for cream. Rarely buy any feed save corn for hogs. Whether 

 we are operating our dairy by best methods is not the question. We were 

 asked to tell why we operate a dairy on a fruit farm. We are not dairy- 



