The Denison review. [volume] (Denison, Iowa) 1867-current, 1910-05-18
AZ Descriptive Write-U p
Of 'Brookrnont' Farm al
Odebolt. Written for the
Saturday Evening Post.

Odebolt. Written for III,
Saturday Evening Post
the labor, without depicting the LAND
or depressing the laborer. Here Ii
where what you might call the heavy
end OF farming comes In; your big
broad ground plan of operations must
be right and practical on lines Tor biz
results. Then comes the matter Of
corner clipping, Of reducing waste and
preventing losses In every possible di.
|rection. Personally. / give more time
to corner clipping and waste saving
than to the big ground plan work.
Why? Not because 1t Is more i'm
portant than the other because it
isn't-but because when once a gen.
eral policy is outlined it is done for
all time, excepting for occasional
changes to meet special emergencies,
This leaves me free to attack the prob
lem of corner clipping. Of detailed
economies, of short cuyts and Of stop
ping leaks. These problems are al
ways with the farmer, and especially
with the larger farmer, whose work
must be done by others. There is
hardly day when some problem Of
this class does not come up for settle
ment.
TIE Hereford Road Squad.
To illustrate this phase OF his ad-
ministration work Mr.. Cook told the
story Of his road herd. In Iowa the
country roads are wide-wider than
those of any other state. perhaps and
there is a common creed in the stand
pat state that any farmer who will not
keep his roads clean and free from
weeds is too narrow between the ewes
to command the respect of his neigh
bors. One day Mr.. Cook saw a gang
OF his workmen cutting the grass along
Office and asked his secretary for the
figures on how much 1t cost Brook.
mont to live up to the Iowa religion Of
clean roads.
Then he called in his stock super
intendent and said:
Pick out about two hundred of our
quietest young Herefords and put
them in charge of the best boy on the
place; have them nerded on the roads
and herded close, SO that they will
make q neat, clean job OF grass cut
ting. And while the lad is doing that
he may as well act as fence inspector"
Perhaps this plan would not have
been practical with any breed Of cattle
less quiet than the Herefords, which
are almost as tractable as sheep; but
as Mr.. Cook has several hundred Of
these thoroughbreds he had no diff
Guilty In organizing road squad which
keeps his highways clean and at the
same time puts on flesh which, at the
regular market price, figured fifteen
hundred dollars in road income as
against four hundred dollars in direct
outlay. And the herdsman, at the same
time, filled the position OF fence in.
spector.
Disease among hogs and cattle is
one of the heaviest and steadiest
drains on the net income of any large
live stock farm. Whatever will serve
materially to reduce the ravages of
this persistent form OF waste is car
dinal economy on any live stock farm
and especially 80 on a farm which
seldom produces fewer than four
thousand hogs and two thousand cattle
in year, and often increases these
figures by fifty per cent or more. Mr..
Cook tackled the problem of disease
prevention and cure in the temper of a
scientist, with an eye always alert for
the practical. A season OF diligent
and studious experiments with hog
cholera remedies gave him general
distrust of medicines; he was con-
WINGED by his mortality figures that, in
the matter of cures, the game aswn't
worth the candle. Then 1t was clear
to him that his only hope Of strangling
this kind Of waste was by prevention.
He no longer attempted to cure a hog
afflicted with the cholera. but his in
vestigations proved to his satisfaction
that a hog which lives through this
course is thereafter immune from it.
And from these immunes he selected
his herding stock. The results Of this
policy have thoroughly established him
In the belief that It, is possible to
breed hogs which are practically i'm
mune from this plague. When this
theory is combated with scientific ar
gument he simply answers: 81 know
that I'm on the right track, for I've
tried it out. year after year, with a
big bunch OF hogs. And if it justifies
itself with big drove 1t certainly
will with small one, for when it
comes to hogs, everybody knows that
there Ia more, 6ouoor IN ln,~x<x .,,,.,.