1 1 6 Barn Construction. 



quirements of a good dairy cow are, first, capacity 

 for food, large paunch powerful machinery for di- 

 gesting and assimilating the product; second, she 

 requires a large lung capacity to purify the blood 

 from which milk is the product. Then if she has 

 a muscular jaw, heavy muscular lips for milling the 

 foods, and large open nostrils for supplying a large 

 pair of lungs, we have the essential machinery of a 

 productive dairy cow, and the necessity of supplying 

 an abundance of fresh air is apparent. 



Water. 



There is one other requirement that our bam 

 must not fail to have, and that is fresh water in 

 abundance. Water is the least expensive of all the 

 other things that go to make up the raw material 

 from which milk is made. Personally I object to 

 water continually standing before the cows in their 

 stalls. Ensilage and soiling crops are very watery, 

 and cows are apt to get into the habit of drinking 

 for want of something to do, and bowel trouble is 

 the result, caused by the washing of undigested food 

 past the third and fourth stomachs, causing irrita- 

 tion and looseness of the bowels. Give them all 

 they want to drink at a time, and at least twice a 

 day, but shut it off and empty all troughs. The in- 

 dividual iron troughs are usually operated by a float, 

 and the troughs stand full all the time. There should 

 be some means of shutting off the suppl}', and empty- 

 ing every trough. I have seen most of the patent 



