My Holsteins are great feeders; more than 2 tons of grain, 2-1/2 tons of hay, and 4 or 5 tons of corn fodder, in addition to a ton of roots or succulent vegetables, pass through their great mouths each year.  The hay is nearly equally divided between timothy, oat hay, and alfalfa; and when I began to figure the gross amount that would be required for my 50 Holstein gourmands, I saw that the widow’s farm had been purchased none too quickly.  To provide 100 tons of grain, 125 tons of hay, and 200 or 300 tons of corn fodder for the cows alone, was no slight matter; but I felt prepared to furnish this amount of raw material to be transmuted into golden butter.  The Four Oaks butter had made a good reputation, and the four oak leaves stamped on each mould was a sufficient guarantee of excellence.  My city grocer urged a larger product, and I felt safe in promising it; at the same time, I held him up for a slight advance in price.  Heretofore it had netted me 32 cents a pound, but from January 1, 1898, I was to have 33-1/3 cents for each pound delivered at the station at Exeter, I agreeing to furnish at least 50 pounds a day, six days in a week.

This was not always easily done during the first eight months of that year, and I will confess to buying 640 pounds to eke out the supply for the colony; but after the young heifers came in, there was no trouble, and the purchased butter was more than made up to our local grocer.

It will be more satisfactory to deal with dairy matters in lump sums from now on.  The contract with the city grocer still holds, and, though he often urges me to increase my herd, I still limit the supply to 300 pounds a week,—­sometimes a little more, but rarely less.  I believe that 38 to 44 cows in full flow of milk will make the best balance in my factory; and a well-balanced factory is what I am after.

I am told that animals are not machines, and that they cannot be run as such.  My animals are; and I run them as I would a shop.  There is no sentiment in my management.  If a cow or a hog or a hen doesn’t work in a satisfactory way, it ceases to occupy space in my shop, just as would an imperfect wheel.  The utmost kindness is shown to all animals at Four Oaks.  This rule is the most imperative one on the place, and the one in which no “extenuating circumstances” are taken into account.  There are two equal reasons for this:  the first is a deep-rooted aversion to cruelty in all forms; and the second is, it pays.  But kindness to animals doesn’t imply the necessity of keeping useless ones or those whose usefulness is below one’s standard.  If a man will use the intelligence and attention to detail in the management of stock that is necessary to the successful running of a complicated machine, he will find that his stock doesn’t differ greatly from his machine.  The trouble with most farmers is that they think the living machine can be neglected with impunity, because it will not immediately destroy itself or others, and because it is capable of a certain amount of self-maintenance; while the dead machine has no power of self-support, and must receive careful and punctual attention to prevent injury to itself and to other property.  If a dairyman will feed his cows as a thresher feeds the cylinder of his threshing-machine, he will find that the milk will flow from the one about as steadily as the grain falls from the other.