DAIRY MEETING. I7I 



or the man who has a good home market and is making private 

 dairying a specialty, in my judgment cannot afford to fool with 

 dual purpose cows. Did you ever hear of a man who was breed- 

 ing trotting horses trying to get a trotting horse and a draft 

 horse combined ? An absurd idea, because it cannot be done. 



The three points I want to make are these : First, start in 

 with good blood ; get good stock with good pedigrees. Then 

 you must give the right kind of feed, and then you must have 

 favorable conditions and surroundings. You know in the veg- 

 ■etable kingdom, by giving our corn plant, that we think so much 

 of, unfavorable conditions one year, it will fail to produce ears, 

 fail to reproduce itself. We see the result quicker in the veg- 

 etable kingdom, because the life of the plant is short, but the 

 process is just as surely going on with our animals. Unfavorable 

 conditions mean deterioration. If you are raising your own stock, 

 a great deal has to do with the care of the calf. In the first place, 

 he must be well born. I think many farmers make a mistake, I 

 know I have, in allowing heifers to drop their first calves too 

 3^oung. With a great deal of pleasure I heard Mr. Ellis say 

 yesterday that his heifers came in on the average at 31 months 

 old. It has been the custom to a great extent to have calves 

 dropped at two years, or often less, and the heifer is not fully 

 developed. She has not got her growth and, in my judgment, 

 we do not get the strong, vigorous cow that we would get if 

 we should not let the calf come until the heifer is older. 



Another mistake is this : the Jersey is a very persistent milk- 

 er. She has a tendencv not to s:o drv, and manv of them are 

 milked vear after vear. I once heard a man sav that he had a 

 cow which had been giving milk continually for nineteen years. 

 I believe that the cow should have a rest of at least six or eight 

 weeks. Then you get a stronger, more vigorous calf. 



The question now comes, How shall we rear that calf from its 

 babyhood ? Do you know that this nation is a nation of dyspep- 

 tics? Why? Because the little boys and girls before they get 

 their growth are dyspeptic, they are not reared right, they have 

 not the right kind of food. We often raise our calves under con- 

 ditions that make them dyspeptic in the cow sense. This little 

 calf should be given food that will completely develop him along 

 all lines, and never food that contains a large amount of fat. 

 Give him skim-milk and ground oats. I do not think we farm- 



