44 AGRICULTURE OF MAINE. 



tant that the proper sire shall be used for breeding purposes, 

 and that strong and vigorous calves shall be dropped. 



The sire to be used must be carefully selected. He should be 

 not only a "pure bred," but a good "pure bred." It is not 

 enough that his name is written in a book and that he has a 

 herd book number. The producing power of his dam and his 

 grandam should be known. Of what value is registration 

 unless it stands for production? We keep animals for the 

 money we can make out of them, and not simply to breed long 

 lines of fashionable families. We have spent too much money 

 buying pedigrees that did not stand for anything. The various 

 cattle associations are to be praised for the introduction of 

 advanced registry systems whereby the buyer may know what 

 has been accomplished by the ancestors of the stock he wishes 

 to buy. Get a bull then whose dam has been a good producer 

 of milk or butter, and whose grandam on his sire's side was a 

 great producer. Don't go back over three or four generations 

 of registered scrubs to find a famous animal in the pedigree. 

 Look for excellence close up to the animal you are buying, or 

 the one you are going to breed from. 



In order to obtain vigorous calves the cow should be well fed 

 before the calf is dropped. The common practice of stopping 

 all grain feed when the cow goes dry is not a good one. The 

 cow must be well fed if she is to develop a strong, vigorous, 

 and healthy calf. The feed may be of the same nature as when 

 she is milking, a good protein ration. Two weeks before calv- 

 ing, feed liberally on wheat bran. This is cooling to the system 

 and furnishes excellent material for building bone in the young 

 calf. 



After the calf is dropped it should be given new milk from its 

 dam for the first few days and preferably for t\vo weeks. If 

 the cows are Jerseys or Guernseys it is well to limit carefully 

 the amount of milk given the young calf, as the rich milk of 

 these breeds frequently gives the youngster indigestion. The 

 milk from Ayrshires or Holsteins is better to raise calves on 

 than that from the Jerseys or Guernseys. If the cow has been 

 well fed before freshening, the calf is more likely to be vigorous 

 and to withstand the ills of calfhood. 



The calf may be fed from six to ten pounds of new milk per 

 day for the first two weeks. After that gradually replace new 



