St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1890-06-20
WHAT THEY LEARN
At the Agricultural Colleges and
How 1t Is of Use to Them.

At the Agricultural Colleges and
How 1t Is of Use to Them.
Many wise men undertake to prove
that agricultural colleges educate boys
off the farm, says the Rural New
Yorker; that is. that what boy learns
at an agricultural will teach him to get
away from farm life as fast as he can
move. 1t will be interesting to know
what such folks will have to say about
the following letter which was sent to
Prof. l. p. Roberts by former student
now living in Minnesota. The best Of
it is that this is simply a sample Of
many letters received from ex-stu-
dents: !
"Since coming home last April I
have had pretty busy time of it,,
Some of the time have worked on the
eight-hour plan-eight hours in the
fore and eight in the afternoon. Well,
the barn is done, and we are more
than pleased with it. 1t is 44x60
feet; the entire basement is used for
on the floor above and the manure
is thrown through trap doors as in
the Cornell university barn. In fact,
nearly everything about the building
is patterned after the building. I
would not take small fortune for
what | learned from you in the matter
of farm building. We had German
carpenter who was good workman,
but who had so many dash-churn and
pod-auger ideas about barn-building
that it was necessary to stand over,
him with a club most of the time.
Just before beginning work on our
barn he finished, for German neigh
Dor, one that is most fearful and
wonderful arrangement. The horses
and cows are in the basement and the
rows of stalls extend across the build
ing: there are four different rows and
four different outside doors to get to
them, and there is no other way for
getting from one part of the stable to
the other. l got our carpenter to put
eight windows behind the row of horse
stalls, sixty feet, and he nearly tainted
when | wouldn't let him make the
horses stand with their heads towards
the light. Then he thought had gone
stark mad when l told him to hang
the trap-door over the stairway at
the end instead of OH one side; but
after had the pulley and the weight
attached he said: Dot vas poOty
goot ting We have water in both the
COW and horse stables. 1t is brought
from either of two ciSterns-One just
lOOfC tiO Oell II CuC
catches the water from the barn, and
another which is filled from well by
wind-power. l did all the plumbing
myself. We built a sllo 14x27 and %
feet deep. | am convinced that it is
poor economy to open silo before the
contents begin to cool. We opened
ours toosoon and could not use the Silage
fast enough to prevent some from
moulding on top.
In spite of the advice "never at
tempt to join stone and wood in silo
building we aid it, and. l think. made
success of it. We used patent matched
lathing, and cemented over the place
where the stone and wood joined. Tho
senior member of the firm was too much
afraid of fire to allow an engine near
the barn, so we.got tread power with
the cutter. like the power much bet
ter than expected
We have dehorned all the cattle. and
will take the ''budS' from the calves in
the future. 1t would be simply impos,
sible to keep the cows in the basement
if they had tine use OF their horns.