THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



263 



One frequently hears the unmodi- 

 Summer Diet? fied statements that it is well to eat 

 Yes, If You very sparingly in the summer time, 



Want One, But and, that very little or no meat 

 Don't Under Eat should be taken. 



In summer, it is true that there 



is not the body demand for the concentrated fuel, and 

 so we instinctively turn from the rich fatty foods, 

 such as fat meats, rich gravies, pastries, and fried 

 foods. 



Because meat contains in large proportions pro- 

 tein, which is a quick fuel, it is reasoned that therefore 

 meat should be eliminated from the diet. The amount 

 of meat may well be cut some, yet it is reasonable to 

 assume that there is need for its tissue building value 

 in summer as in winter, and it has not yet been shown 

 that other protein types of food adequately take the 

 place of meat. 



Lusk in his Human Nutrition makes this state- 

 ment : "But if a cool climate, there is no strongly sub- 

 stantiated argument why one should not follow the 

 general custom of taking a medium amount of protein 

 in moderate accordance with the dictates of his ap- 

 petite." 



In our eagerness to trim the corners let us not 

 forget that the ill effects of under eating are no less to 

 be avoided than those resulting from over eating, and 

 that the advice of Mrs. Means, "Get a plenty while 

 you're a gittin' " is a safe dietetic maxim for most of 

 us to follow. 



Year after year many farmers milk 

 Do Not Keep cows that do not pay for the feed they 

 Cows That consume. Indeed, the average annual 

 Do Not production of a cow in this country 



Pay Profits is approximately 4,000 pounds of milk, 



containing 160 pounds of butter fat. 

 The best dairymen say there is no profit in such 

 production, and, of course, there are vast numbers of 

 cows that fall far below these figures. To make his 

 herd a success, therefore, the farmer must weed out 

 the animals that are costing him money and keep those 

 that are bringing it in to him. 



This, however, is not so easy as it may seem. 

 Experiments continually show that it is impossible for 

 any man, however experienced he may be, to estimate 

 with any accuracy the yearly production of milk from 

 any cow. Some animals start with a very good pro- 

 duction and then drop to a very ordinary flow, while 

 others give a much more regular yield. The latter may 

 at the end of the year have given the farmer much 

 more milk, but he will probably consider the former 

 to be the profitable ones. As a matter of fact a man 

 can not guess within a quart how much milk there is in 

 a pail, and if he is selling the product of his herd on a 



butter-fat basis he knows even less of the yield from 

 each individual animal. 



The co-operative cow testing associations are do- 

 ing much to put dairying on a real business basis. They 

 are money makers for the farmers. 



One hundred and sixty-three of these associations 

 were in operation last year in the United States. This 

 is a rapid growth when it is remembered that the first 

 association in this country was organized in Fremont, 

 Mich., in 1905, and that as late as 1908 only six asso- 

 ciations had been formed. America is, nevertheless, 

 still far behind Europe, where there are at the present 

 time between 2,500 and 3,000 such associations, the 

 first having been started in Denmark in 1895. 



Although a large amount of money is 

 It's Better spent annually for the importations of 

 To Stick crude drugs, and the extermination of 



To the a number of valuable native drug 



Old Crops plants is threatened, government spec- 

 ialists do not believe that the growing 

 of drug plants offers any unusual opportunities for 

 profit to the American farmer. 



Drug plants are subject to the same diseases and 

 risks as other crops and, in addition, knowledge of the 

 best methods of cultivation and handling is less general 

 than in the case of other and better known crops. In 

 order to have the cultivation of drug plants financially 

 successful in this country, the introduction of im- 

 proved methods and the extensive use of machinery is 

 probably necessary. Under these circumstances the 

 natural tendency will be to increase the production in 

 the interest of economy. 



The demand for many drug plants, however, is so 

 limited that if large areas are brought under cultiva- 

 tion there is considerable danger of overproduction. 

 Prospective growers are urged, therefore, to acquaint 

 themselves with market conditions before investing 

 any considerable sum of money in this way. 



Stony 

 Soils 

 And the 

 Orchard 



A stony loam is often recommended 

 as a desirable fruit soil, but stones are 

 advantageous only in that they may 

 help a soil that is too heavy or clayey 

 or too impervious, by making it some- 

 what more pervious to water. The 

 fact that a soil is stony does not necessarily imply that 

 it is productive. If apples are to be grown with profit, 

 and competition is keen, the soil must be productive 

 or at least capable of being brought to a productive 

 state and so maintained. Much of the current belief 

 that "stony" soils possess some peculiar advantage for 

 orchard fruits has undoubtedly arisen from the suc- 

 cess of many orchards located on stony hills. 



