amounts in the soil, it will constantly become a greater menace to the health of those who may come in contact with it.

In the further consideration of the subject of this paper we come to the question of ventilation. Even with the present advanced knowledge of the sanitary importance of ventilation it is to be feared that in the country very little attention is given to the construction of dwellings which shall insure at all times pure air to the inmates. Many people inhale an impure air continually for long periods of time without apparent ill effects. This is especially true if the atmosphere is cool and free from moisture. A considerable length of time generally ensues before the bad results which follow the breathing of air deficient in oxygen and contaminated with animal exhalation are seen or felt. In numerous instances mysterious condition-shown in impaired nutrition, want of physical and nervous force, sleeplessness, and a decided tendency to certain forms of disease-are due to this cause. Because of the fact that the evil results of breathing bad air are slow in making their appearance accounts for the circumstance that the seven by nine bedroom has still an existence, and at least during six months of the year no fresh air from the outside reaches it during the night-time. The bugbear, "fear of catching cold," prevents the raising of the window, and the sleeper breathes an atmosphere which in a very few hours is terribly vitiated and he certainly pays the penalty in impaired health. Every sleeping apartment should at all times allow free ingress of the outside air, guarding, of course, against draughts; at the same time it should not be forgotten that means should be provided for the escape of the air which has become overcharged with carbonic acid gas and other deleterious substances. I need not remind you of the great importance of pure air about the dairy and the great injury done to the products of this department by a contaminated atmosphere. Butter and cheese, like all animal matter, are exceedingly prone to fermentation and subsequent decomposition. Both of these products are to a large extent susceptible of absorbing from the surrounding air any noxious elements existing therein. If the atmosphere of the apartment in which they are manufactured is not made free from such offensive matters an inferior article results. Moreover, the incorporation of bacteria will hasten decomposition of the whole mass to which it finds access, so that butter apparently pure and sweet when first made, if kept a few days, decidedly changes its character in this respect and must be relegated to the grease-tub. It has been repeatedly demonstrated that the man who obtains the best price and the most certain market for his dairy products, is he who manufactures them from the milk of healthy cows, with clean hands and clean utensils, and in a pure atmosphere.

For some time past much attention has been given to the prevalence of tuberculosis among cattle. It has been clearly

established that the affection is much more extensive than formerly supposed. It has been demonstrated that the disease is contagious. It is to be believed that the keeping of herds in hot and ill-ventilated stables is an important factor in the production and, certainly, in the contagiousness of this dangerous and fatal ailment. It is not to be disputed that warm stables in our cold and changeable winters afford certain advantages, principally in the saving of heat-producing foods; but given an underground stable with thick walls impervious to air, with a few small windows at the top and no opening near the floor, therein confine, as is often done, a number of animals entirely out of proportion to the breathing space provided and you have conditions decidedly unfavorable to the good health of cattle. If they are milk-givers the product will, unquestionably, be impaired. The danger of this is very much increased by the habit which many farmers have of turning out in the yard a part of the day, when the cattle are allowed to stand for hours after drinking ice cold water. There is no question as to the necessity and importance of moderate exercise, but it would seem proper that it should be of short duration and in the warmer part of the day; and especially the exposure should bear some relation to the condition of warmth to which the cattle have been accustomed within their stables.

In conclusion, I need not remind you that pure water, effective sewerage and a wholesome atmosphere are necessary for continued healthy existence. When we fail to supply these to ourselves and our animals we pay the penalty in loss of money, health and life.

Some Matters of Interest to the

Dairy Farmer.

GEORGE A. SMITH.

The subject," Matters of Interest to the Dairy Farmer," might be taken up in several different lines, and each of them be appropriate, as far as his business is concerned. The last few years it has been difficult to tell which branch of farm work gave the most encouragement of profit, but the subject that I will take up to-day is on the line of the dairy.

It is only a few years since that this was one of the most profitable branches of farming in New York State, but now the farmer says he cannot live at the business, the prices are so low, and yet prices are better than they were before the civil war, when farms were bought and paid for from the receipts of the dairy. It would seem from this fact that there was some other trouble beside the price, and I think the older farmers could tell us something about the changed conditions if they would.

In those early days the ways of living were very different from what they are at present. Very little money was paid out for liv ing expenses, and what money was received went to pay for the farm. To-day it is very different. The high prices that prevailed during the war times brought about changed conditions on the farm. The milk, instead of being worked up at home and the product sold at the close of the season, was taken to the cheese factory or creamery, and manufactured and sold and the proceeds paid to the farmer every month. This gave him plenty of money in his pocket. He saw other people living on the " shelf," as the saying is, and could not see any reason why he should not do the same thing. This worked all right while the bigh prices lasted, but when the lower prices came he wanted to continue to live the same way, but he now finds when the end of the season comes that his money is all used up and he has nothing left to pay his debts. He argues at once that he must have a return of the war prices; that is true if he is to do business the same as he has in the past.

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I have a question that was given me a few days ago at an Institute which I will read, and from that we can form some idea of the problem that confronts the dairy farmer to-day: "Assuming that the average cow produces 3,500 pounds of milk of aver

age quality per annum; that hay is worth ten dollars per ton, cornmeal fifteen dollars per ton, shorts thirteen dollars per ton, pasturing twenty-five cents per week and labor one dollar per day, what will be the cost per pound of the butter or cheese made from the milk?"

We will commence with the first of January to keep our cow and feed her hay and some grain. May 20th is as early a date as we can figure to have pasture in the dairy sections. This would be 140 days to keep the cow on dry food. It has been found by a large number of tests weighing the food and the animal-that it requires on an average about twenty-four pounds of dry matter, containing about two and one-half pounds of digestible blood-forming elements, 12.5 pounds starch and sugar, and .05 pounds of fat, for the food of support, a relative proportion of one part of blood-forming elements to five and four-tenths of the heat and fat formers, to keep the animal without gain or loss under ordinary conditions. Twenty-five pounds of hay would contain 21.70 pounds dry matter, 0.725 pound digestible protein, 10.50 pounds digestible starch and sugar and 0.37 pound digestible fat. This would lack in all the elements and would contain too large a proportion of the heat and fat-forming elements, being a proportion of one to fifteen. But we will allow that she will get along with this ration for the first month; then we will give her three pounds of bran until the 20th of March, when we will assume she comes in milk. We then feed her five pounds of bran and three pounds of cornmeal per day until the 20th of May. Then pasturing for twenty weeks; that we give her three pounds of bran and two pounds of cornmeal per day for sixty days in the fall, and keep her through the fall up to January 1st on cornstalks and roughage. Then our account would stand about. as follows:

Our question gave 3,500 pounds of average milk. This has been found to be about 3.8 per cent. fat, or about four pounds of butter to the hundred pounds of milk. This would give 140

pounds of butter, which would make its food cost 28 cents a pound. Then add the cost of manufacture, which would bring it up to 30 cents for butter, a loss of at least 10 cents a pound, or $14.

In making cheese it has been found that one pound of fat in the milk will make, with good conditions, 2.70 pounds of cheese. This would give us 359 pounds of cheese, at a food cost of 11 cents. Add the making and furnishing and we have 12 cents. Last year's selling price averaged about 7 cents, a loss of 41 cents, or about $16. If it were used as crude milk (a quart of milk weighs 2.14 pounds) this would give us 1,635 quarts of milk at a cost of 2.4 cents a quart. It does not require an expert mathematician to see that this means a loss of a large amount of money to the farmers who keep that class of cows. Allowing that the loss is only $12 on the average, to the dairyman with twenty cows, it means $240, and on the cows in the State about $19,000,000. If the farmers of the Empire State had that money to-day, I do not think we would hear quite so much about hard times.

In these calculations we have not taken into consideration the labor which was included in the question, and the showing is so bad that it would seem that it was not necessary to bring that in to convince every one that the business is in bad shape. But there is another item that we have not credited, and that is the value of the manure, which would go quite a little way towards paying for the labor, if it was all saved and put on the land, so I think we will leave that out of the calculation and come back to another phase of the subject, and that is the question of higher prices for dairy goods.

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As we all know, the higher prices that prevailed, commencing about 1862 and continuing up to the "eighties," was a great stimulus to the dairy business. I remember very well hearing the farmers talk that the central and northern parts of New York State had a monopoly on the butter and cheese business. They did not believe the western part of the State could ever be much of a dairy section, and when the Western States were mentioned as competitors they had no fears. As they expressed it: "We have succeeded in the business here because we have good, sweet nutritious grasses and pure spring water. Without these, success would be impossible. The West has not got the natural pasture grasses nor the spring water, and, for these reasons, cannot become competitors with us in this business."

Has this proved true? You all know that it has not. The western part of this State, the northern part of Ohio, the central portion of Wisconsin and the district about Elgin, Ill., started