CHAPTER XI.. Experiments Being Tried Out on Our Dairy Farm.

EXPERIMENTS BEING TRIED OUT ON OUR DAIRY FARM.

On our farm we are equipping to produce certified milk. This will be a new business for us. When we have had more experience along this line we may write up the results for publication. However, none of our experiments are far enough along now for us to be justified in giving the results as final.

Those things which would probably be of greatest interest to farmers are our small grain elevator, the layout of machinery to shell corn, grind feed, cut and re-cut alfalfa and our facilities for handling manure. We use electric power which, so far as we know, is the most satisfactory power where it is available. The motor requires no firing up as does a steam engine, and no tinkering such as goes with the use of gasoline. The motors generally run when you want them to and as long as you want them to and give very little trouble.

Our ensilage cutter is permanently installed at one side of a driveway in the barn. It will fill three silos without re-setting. By the use of a re-cutting attachment with the ensilage cutter we make finely-chopped alfalfa of all the stems that the cows will not eat. Cattle will eat these stems after they are cut up fine and they make excellent feed for our delivery horses. The blower (made by the American Harvester Company of Minneapolis) which we use for elevating is separate from the cutter. It is also used to elevate shelled corn, oats and ground feeds to bins overhead. The conveyor to this blower is slightly below the floor level so that ground feed will run from the feed grinder to the conveyor, so also will our shelled corn, or oats that we are unloading from wagons, and the re-cut alfalfa. Everything goes to the blower and is distributed to different bins by turning the spout. An ordinary ensilage cutter can be used as an elevator for grain just as well as the separate blower that we use.

Our system of hauling manure is probably more original than our arrangement for handling feed. We do not shovel the manure out of this barn, neither do we push it out. We wash it out with a two-inch stream of water. The gutters slope from the ends of the barn toward the center, being two feet deep at the center of the barn and one foot deep at the ends. Over these gutters we have cast-iron grates to prevent a cow from slipping down. A ten-inch tile leads from the gutter to a large cess-pool outside of the barn and from this cess-pool we pump the sewerage along a ridge to the highest ground of the farm and irrigate it down over the fields. We have an abundant water supply available, cheap power, and hope this plan will prove a practical means of handling manure. So far it has been a very easy matter to flush the manure from the gutters and our sewerage pump throws 200 gallons per minute through a four-inch pipe up the hill as far as we want to go. We use cut straw for bedding and run plenty of water in with the manure so the pump will not clog. The picture of the pump shown is taken from the catalogue of the American Well Works and does not represent our cess-pool but is similar to the outfit we use.

Our water pump requires a ten horse-power motor and will throw 150 gallons per minute. Besides a means of getting manure hauled out, we expect to do some irrigating in dry weather. While running both the pump at the well and the sewerage pump we require about ten kilowatts of current per hour. This costs us about five cents per kilowatt.

We have installed the King ventilating system. Where a large herd of cows are kept in a barn such a ventilating system is a great help. Our barn is warm and comfortable but not steamy and close.

These systems cost a good deal of money and may not all prove practical. We are not urging that our example be followed but will be glad to give any of our readers such data as we may have concerning the success of these operations. At our barn we prepare the feed for all of our delivery horses and we expect to keep sixty cows. The method of handling manure will eliminate most of the breeding places of flies. Since this milk will be used raw and is produced for babies especially, extra precautions are necessary in our case. These things we have taken into consideration when planning so expensive a layout. In a few months we will know more about these systems and in a few years we will have a conclusive test made. Those who wish to drop in occasionally to see how we are getting along will be welcome.