522 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
August 5 
mg' the feed near the place where it is wanted. Each 
bin may be made with sloping bottom and tight cover 
and hold feed enough for a week or so, as desired, 
and the feed can be properly compounded and thor¬ 
oughly mixed before it is placed in the bin. 
If it is desired to feed a larger number, the sides of 
the barn could be carried up from 6K to 8 feet higher, 
and two rows of pens could be placed on each side of 
the storage room, and thus add one half to the number 
it would hold. We have often fed lambs on an upper 
floor, and uniformly those above did the best. This 
barn may also be made shorter, thus providing room 
for a smaller number of lambs, so that each person 
can build to meet his needs. 
It may be asked if it is not dangerous to put so 
many lambs under one roof; I answer not on the 
score of health. Twenty lambs in one of these pens 
will do just as well, or even better than the same 
number in a barn by themselves. With care in meet¬ 
ing all the necessary conditions, it is perfectly safe 
to put 10,000 lambs under one roof, and it will be very 
much less trouble to care for them than if they were 
scattered in 100 different buildings. Selection, com¬ 
bination of food and care are the measures of success, 
not the number under the same roof. j. s. woodward. 
NOTES FROM THE WORLD’S FAIR. 
[EDITORIAL CORRESPONDENCE.] 
The Great Dairy Tests. 
In the dairy department some very interesting work 
is being done. The defective refrigeration has been 
very much improved, but it is not yet what it should 
be. Three breeds of cattle, Jersey, Guernsey and 
Short-horn, 25 head of each, constitute the herds. It 
is proposed to make the tests exhaustive and com¬ 
plete. Each cow is charged with her maintenance ra¬ 
tion and credited with her products. At the end of 
the season we shall know which of the three breeds 
named is the most profitable. In May there was a 
cheese test, the footings of which have not been an¬ 
nounced. The milk of every cow is analyzed at every 
milking, and the butter, buttermilk and skimmed 
milk are also analyzed. When the figures are ready 
for the public, they will be sure to possess great 
interest. 
Mr. W. H. Gilbert, of Richland, N. Y., one of New 
York’s most successful dairymen, is in charge of the 
active management of the dairy. 
“What are you doing now?” said The Rural’s 
representative to this gentleman to-day. 
“ At present we are working on a butter test, which 
began June 1 and which will last three months. That 
is to be followed by a 30 days’ test of two-year-olds.” 
“ Do you use the separator or the gravity system ?” 
“The separator—altogether. We use the Alpha, 
and are perfectly satisfied with its work. The milk 
of each breed is kept separate throughout. It is sepa¬ 
rated at one operation each morning. The night’s 
milk is cooled to keep it perfectly sweet. In the 
morning the warm milk is mixed with it, which raises 
the temperature of the mass to about 75 degrees, when 
it goes through the separator.” 
“ Do you ripen the cream, or churn it sweet ? ” 
“ It is ripened. We general keep it about 42 hours 
after it is separated, sometimes using the John Boyd 
starter, sometimes not. The churn we use is the 
square box pattern, and we use a Mason power butter- 
worker.” 
“ How long do you find it necessary to churn the 
ci;eam ? ” 
“ From 35 to 45 minutes, and at a temperature vary¬ 
ing from 45 to 55 degrees.” 
“Why this wide difference in the churning tempera¬ 
ture ? ” 
“ It is owing to the difference in breeds. We churn 
the milk of the Jerseys at the highest temperature, 
that of the Short-horns at the lowest, and the Guern¬ 
seys’ between the others. One morning, I see by the 
records, we churned the Short-horn milk at a tempera¬ 
ture of 41, and the butter came finely in 45 minutes.” 
“ When do you stop the churn ? ” 
“ When the butter is in the granular stage. We 
wash it two or three times in the churn, until the 
water from it runs clear, work it once and pack it.” 
“ How much salt do you use ? ” 
“ One ounce to the pound of butter. In addition to 
the milk from the three representative herds, we have 
the milk from 20 extra cows. This we separate, sell¬ 
ing the cream and skim-milk. All our skim-milk and 
buttermilk sell readily at five cents per glass, fur¬ 
nishing an income which goes a long way toward pay¬ 
ing for the experiments.” 
“ Wi o has charge of the analytical work ?” 
“ The laboratory work is done by Prof. Farrington 
under the general direction of Professors Babcock and 
Scovel.” 
“ Are you able to give me any new fact which has 
been established in the work you are doing ? ” 
“ Well, I think we may say that we have proved 
that the quality of the milk determines the value of 
the cheese. To illustrate : the Short-Horns gave more 
milk than the Jerseys, but the Jerseys made the most 
cheese.” 
“ Are your experiments attracting much attention?” 
“Oh yes; throngs of people are watching them, 
and the public seems greatly interested in all the de¬ 
tails. I have f o hesitation in saying that the experi¬ 
ments we are carrying on will be very valuable indeed.” 
The dairy building is a very pleasant place, and to 
all interested in such matters it furnishes an attract¬ 
ive study. The various State exhibits are wonder¬ 
fully fine and the modelings in butter done by Mrs. 
Wadsworth and Mrs. McDowell are really artistic. 
Changes in the Horticultural Department 
The Horticultural Building is getting freshened up 
by the arrival of new fruits. Currants, raspberries, 
gooseberries, blackberries, cherries and whortleber¬ 
ries have succeeded strawberries, and other new fruits 
are coming from the South. Texas has sent us new 
grapes and peaches. Missouri has sent a beautiful 
lot of early apples and Georgia has sent fine Brighton, 
Niagara, Delaware and Superb (?) grapes, with El- 
berta peaches and ripe water-melons. Illinois has a 
fine showing of the small fruits. New York has had 
a fine exhibit of string beans, radishes, peas, lettuce, 
etc., from the State Station at Geneva, and it is rather 
notable that, so far, it is the only display of fresh, 
perishable vegetables in the exposition. The quality 
of the exhibit has been and is very high, reflecting 
the greatest possible credit on the station manage¬ 
ment. 
The wisdom of The Rural’s advice to its readers 
to stay away from the fair until lower rates prevailed, 
is now apparent. Railroad fares have been largely 
reduced and the expenses of living in Chicago have 
also been lowered. Rooms are plentiful at very mod¬ 
erate rates and thousands of them are begging for 
tenants. Comfortable rooms can be had for 75 cents 
per day at many places near the grounds, and there 
is no lack of restaurants with moderate prices. So 
come and see it—it is worth all it will cost, e g. f. 
WHAT PHILADELPHIA MILKMEN HAVE DONE. 
On the last of April, 1893, the United Dairymen’s 
Association, realizing that milk would be very plenti¬ 
ful, fixed the price at 3K cents per quart for May and 
afterward the same for June. The market was well 
supplied through May and until towards the last of 
June, when owing to the drought and flies milk be¬ 
came scarce with a probability that it would be very 
short in July, and the meeting of the association was 
held on the last Saturday in June to fix the price for 
July. After mature consideration and deliberation 
and encouragement from a large number of cealers to 
raise the price so that they would have a greater 
margin, it was fixed at 4K cents per quart for July. 
After this had been done by the farmers, certain large 
dealers and speculators in milk fixed the retail price 
at six cents per quart, which meant that they would 
pay the nearby farmers shipping to them three cents 
per quart. Why did they do it ? We know of no rea¬ 
son except to discourage the production of milk, so 
that the milk being brought from New York State at 
a cost of $1.15 per 40-quart can delivered could be sold, 
as heretofore at times of scarcity, at a high premium, 
thereby enriching the speculators, pinching the small 
dealers and impoverishing the nearby farmers by pay¬ 
ing them less than the milk costs in midsummer when 
flies are so thick and pastures not good. 
The continued hot weather and other causes have 
proved the farmers were coirect in their premises, 
for to-day the supply is very short and the long-haul 
milk that costs (delivered) less than three cents per 
quart is being sold on the platform at five cents per 
quart by the can. We cannot understand why farmers 
do not all join together in self-defense and not allow 
themselves to be subjected longer to the injustice 
practiced by the middlemen. Robert crane. 
Supt. Farmers’ Creamery Ass’n, Philadelphia. 
ARE OUR FARMS POORER THAN THEY WERE FIFIY 
YEARS AGO. 
I lived on my present farm 42 years ago. That it 
produced as good crops then as it did eight years pre¬ 
vious, I have no reason to doubt. In the first article I 
wrote on the farm (October, 1850), I spoke of it as 
“an exhausted farm.” Every writer or editor who 
turns farmer invariably says the previous management 
had exhausted the land till it is too poor to grow 
beans ! But, though I doubtless thought that what I 
said was true, the farm was not exhausted. There is 
at least one field on the farm that has not had a par¬ 
ticle of manure or fertilizer on it for 42 yea“s, and I 
have good reason to believe that it had never had any 
previous to that. It produces just as good crops to¬ 
day as it ever did. I have many acres of land that I 
cleared up myself. Some of it is dry upland that was 
timbered with hard wood, such ab beech and sugar 
maple, and the rest is a black, sandy, mucky soil that 
grew soft wood. We read about the large crops that 
have grown on new land. But it is certain that the 
new land that we clear ourse'ves and bring into 
cultivation does not produce such marvelous crops. 
As a rule, the old land that is drained and thoroughly 
cultivated produces larger crops than the new land. 
There is an enormous quantity of poor land in the 
world. We say it has been exhausted by excessive 
cropping. It is far more probable that the land was 
always poor. The large crops we read about were 
probably produced on a small area of the best land 
and this land will produce good crops still. If poor 
land has not been made poor by cropping, it is very 
hard and unprofitable work to exhaust land. The 
farmer who tries it will be impoverished faster than the 
soil. He must farm better or quit. Forty-two years 
ago on this farm it may have been easier to grow 
peaches than now ; but he can grow as good wheat, 
barley, oats, corn, potatoes, apples, pears, strawberries, 
raspberries, currants, melons, and all kinds of garden 
vegetables as he grew then. I bought two tons of 
Peruvian guano in 1851, and a year or two later I used 
superphosphate and sulphate of ammonia. The land 
needed these fertilizers just as much then as it does 
now. We could and did get along without them just 
as we can get along without them now. But when 
applied judiciously there is profit in their use now as 
then. It is a question of cost of fertilizer and price 
of produce, and has little or nothing to do with the 
“exhaustion of the soil.” , Joseph Harris. 
R. N.-Y.—The above article was written by Mr. 
Harris shortly before his death. 
GAIN IN FEEDING ARKANSAS CATTLE. 
Under the head of The Prospect, page 4 G5, of The 
Rural New-Yorker, July 8, 1893, the editor of that 
journal takes exception to a certain experiment as 
published in Bulletin No. 23 of the Arkansas Experi¬ 
ment Station. The experiment was on the economy 
of feeding pea hay and cotton seed to stock before 
usiDg the same for fertilizing. The R. N.-Y. shows, 
after omitting an important item of the experiment, 
that the station’s conclusion is contrary to the facts of 
the experiment. But why and by what right the item 
is omitted is not stated. The item omitted is $13.16, 
the value of the increase by feeding of the animal’s 
original live weight of 877 pounds. During the 42 
days of feeding the animal gained 123 pounds, thus 
increasing his live weight to 1,000 pounds. The selling 
price was three cents per pound, or $30. The cost was 
IK cent per pound, or S13.15K- The value of the 123 
pounds of gain was $3.69. Deducting this latter and 
the cost of the steer from the selling price, a balance 
of $13.16 is left to be credited to the gain in value of 
the animal’s original live weight. Certainly this is as 
legitimate a profit as any other item in the experi¬ 
ment. The steer was bought and sold in the local 
market at the prevailing prices. If the profits from 
the increased value of the animal seem excessive, they 
are substantiated by some similar feeding experiments 
recorded in the Third Report of the Arkansas Station, 
Lot 5, as well as in Texas Bulletin No. 6, and in other 
places. 
The condition of the steer when the feeding began, 
in March, is reported in full in the experiment. It 
may be stated that the animal was fed for beef and 
not for maintenance. In east and south Arkansas 
cattle maintain themselves on pasture throughout the 
year, and it may be important to state further, for the 
benefit of those unacquainted with cattle in the winter 
on the ranges in these districts, that they are sold at 
