40 AGRICULTURE OF MAINE. 



FEEDING DAIRY COWS. 

 By Ernest Hitchcock, Pittsford, Vt 



(Stenographic Copy.) 



The question of feeding is a very important one. Dr. Smead 

 has explained most clearly, and none too emphatically, the impor- 

 tance of feeding as a matter of health. I shall have to take a 

 little lower ground than that, perhaps. I want to emphasize the 

 importance of feeding simply with reference to its more or less 

 immediate relation to the pocketbook. We heard this after- 

 noon a very interesting talk on the matter of the development of 

 the dair}' cow, or the dairy type. 1 would not for one moment 

 minimize the importance of every farmer's building up and 

 maintaining a herd of cows of the proper type and of the highest 

 possible capacity. But I do believe — I know — that throughout 

 our own state the matter of feeding has been given too little 

 attention, relatively. 



I want to illustrate, in a very homely way, what feed will do, 

 and I will use an illustration that probably every man and woman 

 within the hearing of my voice has seen over and over again. 

 You have seen a cow on dry feed through the months of ^larch 

 and April and the first of Alay, fed more or less liberally, and 

 then you have seen that cow go out upon the green, fresh pasture 

 grasses and, as soon as they came to be at their best, that same 

 cow, with simply that change in the feed, increased her produc- 

 tion enormously. You have seen the same thing take place in 

 the fall. You have seen the cow go through the hot, dry sum- 

 mer months, rambling over our barren pastures, getting about 

 a ration of maintenance, and then you have seen that cow in the 

 fall go into the aftermath, the fall feed as we term it, and, if your 

 experience has been that of a good many, you have seen her 

 double her production of milk within a very few days. That is 

 simply the result of feeding. In the one case the cow was not 

 getting enough feed. Then she came into conditions where her 

 wants were supplied, and almost immediately came the response 

 to that supply. 



Take another illustration. A few years ago the experiment 

 station of Michigan wanted to test this matter of the effect of 



