FORTY-THIRD ANNUAL CONVENTION 189 



way to house the cows. Have good ventilators, whitewash the 

 barn and keep it nice and clean. 



When it comes to feeding the dairy cows on your high 

 priced land where you can plow it all, the pasture is the most 

 expensive feed you have, because you can grow a good crop of 

 corn on an acre which when put into your silo will feed 365 

 days 40 pounds each day. If you can grow alfalfa, so much 

 the better, it is nearly a balanced ration if you put grain with 

 it. My cows never come into the barn and do not find their 

 feed ready for them. Each cow will come in and go to her 

 stall ; and that is better than keeping a dog to drive the cows in. 



When it comes to filling the silos there is more danger 

 of putting the corn in too green than too ripe. You want it 

 nearly mature. Cut it as short as possible, you can stack more 

 in the silo and it will be eaten without any waste. The cow 

 will eat it in preference to any other feed that grows. Some 

 years ago they put up corn too green and it resulted in too 

 much acid in the feed and it was not healthy feed and did not 

 have the nutrition in it that we get in silage today. 



A dairy farm is a manufacturing plant ; the better your 

 farm is, the greater your crops, and the greater your crops the 

 more livestock you keep ; you are doubling up on your farming, 

 and the average dairy can be doubling by breeding calves. The 

 more stock the more fertility goes back on the farm. You 

 don't have any idea of what you can do in that respect. That 

 is the only kind of farming that will pay on your high-priced 

 land, but you have got to have the right kind of cow. 



We have a concrete floor and water trough and drop be- 

 hind the cows, and a cow will furnish from 85 to 95 pounds 

 every 24 hours of the best kind of fertility to go back on your 

 farm; that is something w^orth while. 



These farmers, you say, don't all make money. If that 

 is true, it is not the fault of the business; it is the fault of the 

 farmers. I never knew of a dairy farmer who got into the 

 game right that did not make money. I have seen men fail 

 in the dairy business, but when a man goes into the dairy busi- 

 ness and builds it up and realizes that he is doing something, 

 the more he wakes up and makes that farm his place of busi- 

 ness, the higher his milk checks go. 



