MILK FARMING. 283 



If this be true of farming in general it must be of prime 

 importance to the milk producer. We should never content 

 ourselves with cutting one ton of hay or hai'vesting twenty 

 bushels of corn per acre, but rather endeavor to make our 

 acres produce three to five tons of hay, fifty to seventy-five 

 bushels of corn each, and other crops in proportion. 



Such an accomplishment would give the ambitious farmer 

 much pleasure, as well as most surely enlarge the margin of 

 profit. When we can gather as much from fifty acres as we 

 formerly did from one hundred we may safely dispose of one 

 half our land. This would enable us to reduce our debts 

 and give us a working capital, or we might invest the pro- 

 ceeds for a rainy day. If we desire to enlarge our farms 

 instead of selling our land we might enlarge our barns, 

 increase our stock, and add to our income by the sale of 

 coarse or over-ripe hay, replacing it with bran purchased of 

 the dealer, for bran is a much better milk-producing food. 

 It may seem to many a visionary or impracticable plan to 

 dispose of part of the farm, but it still remains a pertinent 

 question whether, under the changed condition of things, the 

 farms of the State are not generally too large. If we are to 

 double our crops we should learn how to fertilize them. 

 First, we should save all our stable manure, liquid as well as 

 solid. It may be necessary to cement the cellar bottom to 

 accomplish this, or perhaps it may be done by the use of 

 absorbents. Dry horse manure is excellent for use as an 

 absorbent in the cow stable. If it can be procured at a 

 reasonable price, it is one of tUe best fertilizing materials in 

 which the farmer can invest money. The solid and liquid 

 excrement of the cows mixed with horse manure makes a 

 better fertilizer than either would be alone. We may safely 

 invest in good wood ashes, also in ground bone and potash, 

 as they are particularly adapted to the production of grass. 

 There may be prepared fertilizers that are equally as good, 

 but so far my experience has not been as favorable to them 

 as I could wish. I have some reason to believe that thus 

 far they have brought more farmers into debt than they have 

 helped out. It is a familiar saying that " out of nothing 

 comes nothing." But when I have seen farmers applying 

 three or four hundred pounds of some highly advertised 



