FEEDING DAIRY COWS. 43 



that every pound of hay and every pound of oats that had been 

 given him had been absolutely wasted, — lost. The farmer had 

 nothing whatever to show for the feed which he had given to the 

 colt. The same thing is true of the cow. You must feed her 

 above the point of maintenance before you can expect any profit 

 for yourself. 



Keep this in mind, it is the fundamental rule for the dairy 

 stock feeder as well as the feeder of any other animal. What 

 we are seeking for is not necessarily the highest amount, the 

 largest production, but the point of the highest net profit. It 

 does not make any difference how much we take to market unless 

 we can keep some of those returns in our own pocketbook. 

 Perhaps there is no need of this caution, but I will say to you 

 just this, — that it is entirely possible to feed a cow above the 

 point of highest profit. You start in with a reasonable ration, 

 a ration made up, for illustration, of ensilage and clover hay as 

 the roughage, and three or four pounds of a proper grain mix- 

 ture, — a fair ration. Add a pound to that grain mixture and 

 you will get a little more in the milk pail ; add another pound and 

 you will get still a little more. x\nd you may keep on adding to 

 your feed until you get up to perhaps twenty pounds, depending 

 on the digestive capacity of the cow, and all the time the cow will 

 increase her production. You will find, however, that the first 

 pound of additional feed gives you a certain return in the milk 

 pail. The next pound gives you a little less additional return, 

 and so on, until finally somewhere in the series you will pass the 

 point of highest net profit. Where that point is I cannot tell you, 

 I do not think I would tell you if I could. It is a problem you 

 must solve for yourselves in your own herd. But possibly we 

 can get a little help in the matter. Experiment stations have 

 been testing that point. They have been experimenting for 

 years to find out so far as they could, in a general way. where the 

 point of highest net profit came, and they have determined it in 

 their own herds. The Pennsylvania Station quite a number of 

 years ago made some experiments in that line. Our Vermont 

 Station at Burlington tried it, and has repeated the experiments 

 for several years. This was about the result at which they 

 arrived. They found that as they increased the ration from four 

 pounds up to about eight pounds they got a higher net profit, if 

 thev considered the value of the increased amount of skim-milk 



