766 CYCLOPEDIA OF LIVE STOCK AND COMPLETE STOCK DOCTOR. 



ventilation. They should be thoroughly cleaned and swept each day, 

 whitewashed once or twice a year and frequently disinfected. The 

 manure should be taken to the field each day if possible. The water 

 supply must be pure and the ration properly balanced so the cow can find 

 in the food sufficient milk elements to enable her to do her most natural 

 and perfect work. There is such a thing as feeding a cow according to 

 dairy knowledge and the farmer that hath it not and will not seek it fails 

 of his purpose. 



III. The Soil. 



The dairy farmer must be a good soil manager. He should know some- 

 thing of the chemistry of soil. He should know what nitrogen, phosphate 

 and potash mean and their effect on crops. Because of a lack of this 

 knowledge, vast areas of farm lands in the United States have been robbed 

 of their producing power. Every farm should be so farmed as to con- 

 stantly increase its producing power. Every farmer should be an earnest 

 student of his soil. He should hail with a warm welcome all that science 

 and scientific men have to give on this subject. The old dairy districts of 

 New York, New England, Pennsylvania and Ohio have gone down in 

 producing power because the men who owned and managed those farms 

 did not know enough to keep up the fertility of their farms. There is 

 no escape from this indictment. Soil robbing comes from soil ignorance. 

 We must face our responsibility to the soil, to coming generations and to 

 the state with less flinching and less self excusing. 



IV. Organization. 



Every dairy farm should be intelligently arranged as to the relation 

 of field to field, house and out-buildings to each other so that the whole 

 may, like some w^ell arranged factory, be carried on at the least expenditure 

 of labor and the greatest degree of efficiency. A great many dairy farms 

 look as if the several parts had been thrown together. Farm architecture 

 and arrangement is an important part of our study and efforts are being 

 made in Agricultural Colleges to express the best thought of the day. 

 This includes farm machinery and provision made for its shelter when 

 not in use. Here as well as at every other point thought and eff"ort nuist 

 be had to stop waste and thus add to profits. 



V. The Grovi^ing of Crops. 



Corn, both for the silo and the crib, clover and alfalfa, oats and barley, 

 as well as the up-keep of pastures, constitute in the main the crops of the 

 dairy farm. To the end that these crops may be abundant and stable and 

 the soil constantly made more productive, there must be a wise care of 

 manure, a right system of rotation and the expenditure every year of a 



