"Bring them into the directors' room, Bob, where we can look them over without interruption," he said, and Bob for the third time was privileged to occupy this room.
"The first thing I want to know," said the banker, "is how you found the size dairy house you needed. Did you figure it out, Bob, or just look up some catalogs and pick one out that pleased you?"
"No, Mr. White," replied Bob, "Aunt Bettie and I decided first on the size of the dairy herd. We thought that twenty cows would be as many as we would be able to take care of on a farm of the size of ours, if we do general farming. We have used a twenty-cow herd as the basis of our calculations. We found by reading the recommendations in the Government's bulletins, that in order to keep a dairy of good milk cows, it would be necessary to take care of five calves and five yearling heifers, and an old and a young bull in order to keep the herd up to maximum production. We figure that a herd of twenty Holstein cows ought to average two hundred quarts of milk daily. This would mean ten twenty-quart cans to take care of the milk, and, allowing for the ice, would require a trough nine feet by two feet six inches by two feet. If we separate the cream, of course, it wouldn't require such a large trough. But we used this as a basis of the dairy requirements. Then we found by looking up another Government bulletin that it would take about twenty tons of ice to take care of this milk, but we need ice around the farm for other things, too, so we decided to make the icehouse large enough for thirty tons. Aunt Bettie and I read all the bulletins we could get from the Government and then we looked up the different ones sent out by the Portland cement manufacturers, but we found they didn't exactly agree; besides, we felt that if we could build the icehouse inside of the dairy, the ice wouldn't melt so fast, so we've decided to make a combination building like this," he said, as he laid his plans before the banker. "We're going to put this building back of the woodshed where it will join the new cow barn."
"But isn't a twenty-cow herd pretty large for one man to handle, Bob?" asked the banker.
"No, Mr. White, you can get a two-unit milking machine now that will milk twenty to twenty-five cows in one hour and give a ninety-eight per cent. efficiency."
"How much will that cost, Bob?"
"We can get a complete two-unit outfit consisting of pump, air tanks, two milking units, installed in the barn, complete for $450."
"But you've only ten cows, now, Bob. Wouldn't that be too large for them?"
[Illustration: THE ELECTRIC MILKER SOON PAYS FOR ITSELF]
[Illustration: COMFORTABLE SANITARY STALLS OF CONCRETE WITH WOOD
BLOCKPAVING ON FLOOR. RUNNING WATER AND PLENTY OF SUNSHINE ASSURE A
HEALTHY AND CONTENTED HERD]