The Coiv Barn 



light is the windows in the sidings, and it 

 moves the beholder to pity that in so many 

 barns they resemble the loop-holes in a rev- 

 olutionary fortress. No one asks the farmer 

 to build a cow barn of glass, as the gardener 

 builds his hothouse, but he might with 

 profit take a point or two from the methods 

 of the gardener. In his conservatory the 

 gardener tries to reproduce artificially the 

 conditions of nature, and the more closely 

 he attains them the better his plants thrive. 

 The farmer's object is to conserve his cows 

 during the winter months, and the more 

 closely he reproduces natural conditions the 

 greater will be his success. It he puts them 

 in a building deficient in light they are de- 

 prived of one of the essentials of health, and 

 thereby rendered more liable to be attacked 

 by disease. A sick cow milks her owner's 

 pocketbook; yet farmers have been known to 

 maintain a tuberculous herd for years, while 

 they would not keep a consumptive farm- 

 hand for a week. If they were unaware of 

 the presence of the disease they paid a stag- 



47 



