Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1914-06-20
Ware the Glowing Promise.

extensive plant In order TO bring in the
coin.
But even the business of the fancy
breeder 10 precsr1ous. Blue ribbon-win-
ming parents may produce the scrub
best sort of offsprings. and through
causes inexplicable and uneontroilabie
years wiped out In a single breeding
season. OF course. the reputation he
has built up may enable him Tor
time to continue to sell birds and eggs
last indefinitely: and what Of the poor
victims who buy his stock?
It would be absurd to say there 10
no money to be made in the poultry
at 1t, making lots of money. but they
must either be luckier or shrewdor than
the average OF morta1s. There are men
who make money in Wall street., bot
that doesn't prove the average r.saSs man S.a
where am ready to abandon the idea
Of commercial chicken farming. but Tn
going forward with mighty careful
steps, and do my best to find out what's
just around each corner before turn II
Getting Interested In Cows.
I stood out Just as long as I could
against buying q COW. but now that ve
have her and I am beginning to get
my hand in" I am becoming IN en-
thusiast. 1 have had a fancy for live
stock right along. but don't think I'd
like being a dairyman. It seemed TO
me there was too much drudsery. too
much machine-like work. Cows have
to be fed on time, and watered on time
and MIXED on time. or things VIII 20
to smash. felt that a man might
almost as well be in prison as com
demned to play hostler and milkmaid
to bunch of cows, morning and night
seven days a week. and every week in
the year. A farmer who depends on
tilling the soil has lot Of independ-
ence. In the winter his time Is prac-
tically his own. and there are few sea-
sons Of the year when he can't take
day of II he likes. realized that the
dairyman had his milk checks coming
in every month. while the grower Of
cash crops had to wait long time be-
tween pay days. but that is a matter
merely of having Sufficient capital and
My prejudice against dairy farming
began to dissipate when l took half a
day this week and visited q big. dairy
farm not far from my place. had
invited me several times to call and
see his place. SO one day after our
noon dinner 1--WE have dinner at noon
when / am at home and in the even
up to the dayton wagon and taking
the two boys drove the Ave miles to
Mr. Fredericks' place. It was one Of
the most enjoyable afternoons I ever
spent. Take my advice and II you
have an opportunity to visit a modern
dairy farm, seize upon IT.
There were sixty milch cows in Mr..
Fredericks' big barn. all Holsteins. or
black and whites" as he called them.
The barn itself was well worth the
visit. 1t is new and up-to-the minute
in every particular. The floor is of
concrete, with cutters back Of the
stalls, the stalls themselves Of gal
vanized iron. with iron stanchions to
litter carriers running on an overhead
track entirely around the barn and
out into the barnyard to the manure
shed: windows are screened. there is
thing is as clean as a Dutch house
wife's kitchen. The thing that inter-
ested me most. though. was the me-
chanical mixers. One machine milks
men with dozen or so machines milk
the entire sixty in about the time II
takes me to milk one. Everything
was as orderly and expeditions as .
no evidences of the terrible drudgery
I had heard about.
How the Milk Is Handled.
The milkhouse. which We visited next.
was just as interesting and even more
cleanly. Mr.. Fredericks ships only his
cream to Washington. feeding the skim
milk to calves and pigs. First the milk
is run over water-cooled aerators. which
take out the animal heat. Then it goes
into power-driven separator and the
cream comes out into one pail and the
skim milk into another. The cream is
put in ten-gallon cans. which are set in
concrete trough through which cold
water runs, and once a day the cream
Is shipped to an ice cream factory in
Washington. II all ice cream sold in
cities is made from such cream as goes
from Mr.. Fredericks farm it certainly
is clean and ought TO be wholesome.
BY selling nothing but the cream. Mr
F7redericks explained to me. the minimum
amount of fertility is taken off the
farm. AS the cotton seed meal and
gluten meal he buys to supplant the feed
he grows contains many times the guam
tity OF soil fertility that is shipped away
in cream. his farm is growing more
fertile every year instead of becoming
exhausted, as are SO many other farms
around me. l don't believe any finer
crops ever were grown on the rich
Mississippi valley lands than | saw grow
ing in Mr.. Fredericks fields. He has
two huge silos and is planning to build
another, and he has about ready to cut
forty acres of clover and timothy in
one field. one of the prettiest sights
ever saw.
His experience with alfalfa. about
which so much is being written just now.
has not been wholly satisfactory. He
has been growing experimental fields OF 1t
for several years. and though he has
been able to get good stands and cut good
crops his COWS have not seemed to relish
It. Yet they would cat alfalfa shipped
here from the west in preference almost
to any other roughage. He hasn't been
able to figure whether the fault ie In the
soil or the climate or in the eastern
grown varieties of the plant This year
he has five acres from seed that came
from Iowa. and is hopeful oil getting hay
that will make more of an appeal 10
fastidious bovine appetites.
Prefers Half Loaf to None.
/ have used up good deal of space
telling Of my vicit to the Fredericks
a revelation to me and upset a whole
basketful of preconceived notions. I am
afraid. too, that il has made me a little
dissatisfied with my eight acres. my one
COW. two pigs and pluS-ugly of an old
horse. Ownership of such farm. how
ever. is something | may only dream
about. 1t takes capital to create such a
place Nor will capital alone do it. Elk
perience industry ard a lot of hard busi-
ness sense are required In addition. Mr..
Fredericks is not the product of an
agricultural college but he was born and
reared on a farm in the dairying section
school education and native intelligence
enough to read Understandings the
writings Of farm scientists. applying that
which is adaptable to his uses and re-