e mowing-machine, set high, every ten
or twenty days, according to the season. Following the mower, we use a
spring-tooth rake which bunched the weeds and gathered or broke up the
droppings; and everything the rake caught was carted to the manure vats.
Our big Holsteins do not suffer from close quarters, so far as I am able
to judge, neither do they take on fat. From thirty minutes to three
hours (depending on the weather), is all the outing they get each day;
but this seems sufficient for their needs. The well-ventilated stable
with its moderate temperature suits the sedentary nature of these milk
machines, and I am satisfied with the results. I cannot, of course,
speak with authority of the comparative merits of soiling _versus_
grazing, for I have had no experience in the latter; but in theory
soiling appeals to me, and in practice it satisfies me.

When I found I could keep more cows on the land set apart for them, I
built another cow stable for the dry cows and the heifers, and added
four stalls to my milk stable by turning each of the hospital wards into
two stalls.

The ten heifers which I reserved in the spring of 1896 were now nearly
two years old. They were expected to "come in" in the early autumn, when
they would supplement the older herd. The cows purchased in 1895 were
now five years old, and quite equal to the large demand which we made
upon them. They had grown to be enormous creatures, from thirteen
hundred to fourteen hundred pounds in weight, and they were proving
their excellence as milk producers by yielding an average of forty
pounds a day. We had, and still have, one remarkable milker, who thinks
nothing of yielding seventy pounds when fresh, and who doesn't fall
below twenty-five pounds when we are forced to dry her off. I have no
doubt that she would be a successful candidate for advanced registration
if we put her to the test. For ten months in each year these cows give
such quantities of milk as would surprise a man not acquainted with this
noble Dutch family. My five common cows were good of their kind, but
they were not in the class with the Holsteins. They were not "robber"
cows, for they fully earned their food; but there was no great profit in
them. To be sure, they did not eat more than two-thirds as much as the
Holsteins; but that fact did not stand to their credit, for the basic
principle of factory farming is to consume as much raw material as
possible and to turn out its equivalent