SECRETARY'S REPORT. 



17 



gain was very small indeed, or that the farmer was mistaken in his 

 judgment, most probably the latter. The writer has frequently 

 called upon his herdsman to guess upoA the gain or loss of indi- 

 vidual animals since the former weighing, when again brought to 

 the scales, and though the man— being a fair judge — had been with 

 the animals every day, had constantly tended them and knew 

 whether they had fed well or ill, yet he would as often guess 

 very wild as near the mark. The girting chain is not a sure indi- 

 cator of condition ; often an animal, retaining well his girth, will 

 show by the scales a gain or loss of twenty-five to fifty pounds in 

 a period of a few days or weeks. 



The degree of cold to which an animal is exposed has a very 

 marked influence upon its condition, as may be shown by actual 

 trial. For this purpose I desire to introduce some observations, 

 (they hardly deserve to be called experiments,) made upon my 

 own herd of neat stock during the past year. The herd con- 

 sisted of twenty-three animals, viz : four oxen, working about half 

 the time ; eight cows, giving milk as indicated in the table ; two 

 heifers, two years old coming three ; five yearlings, coming two ; 

 four calves, coming one. 



I give below a page Trom my herd-book, containing a general 

 summary, the result in gross of the food, total gain or loss per 

 day, weight of milk per day, mean temperature and date of birth 

 of calves. I embrace the whole neat stock upon the farm in these 

 observations, for the reason that many farmers will say when ques- 

 tioned closely that they are aware that some of their animals are 

 losing, but that others are doing well enough to make all up to a 

 fair gain. 



