ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN'S ASSOCIATION. 115 



for three or four hours, while keeping up motion, you then 

 reahzed that even this way had some draw backs also. You see 

 I have been through the whole business, and know whereof I 

 speak; for I fed a dairy of fifty cows in just that way for several 

 years, and probably should be doing so yet, had it not been that 

 so many factories came into Dixon, and took my hired help 

 away, not even leaving a boy to drive the horses on the power. 



So, out of sheer necessity, I got my ''thinker" to work, and 

 discovered that cows had a grinding mill, power and sheller all 

 their very own, and I commenced to shove in ear corn. By a 

 little further investigation I discovered that they had a husking 

 attachment also, and I put in snapped corn! Well, that tickled 

 me so that I kept on investigating until I found a whole shred- 

 ding machine, without any patent on it, and capable of doing 

 vast amounts of work without repairs and I rolled in the corn 

 and stalk, both together, and results were very satisfactory. 



But I still had to grind the oats and that did not quite suit 

 me. So I experimented and investigated until one day I discov- 

 ered — what do you think.? — a whole threshing machine, self- 

 feeder, stacker, and all. So now, I just drop down the sheaf 

 oats in front of the self-feeder, it picks them up, and "presto, 

 change — milk! 



I immediately set to work to study the matter closely and 

 decided that, by proper previous arrangements, I had discov- 

 ered the means that would enable me to reduce the cost of feed 

 and labor at least one-half, do away with all machinery, save 

 toll, produce a larger milk yield, enable me to meet the con- 

 stantly decreasing prices of farm and dairy products, besides in- 

 creasing the income of the farm one-third, by selling all the hay 

 formerly fed to the cows. 



My present method is to plant an acre with corn for each 

 •cow, putting as nearly as possible six kernels in a hill, thus get- 

 ting nearly double the fodder on one acre. The ears are not 

 so large, and hence more easily eaten by the cow; the stalks are 

 not so large around and have more leaves, thus making the fod- 

 der very nutritious and relishable. 



Cut the corn-fodder as soon as the ear is mature enough to 



