METHOD AND COST OF RAISING THE DAIRY CALF. 47 



milks in order to pay for what she eats each year and leave 

 enough over to pay in three years for what it costs to raise her. 

 It will cost pretty close to $75.00 per year to feed her, leaving 

 $25.00 each year to go toward paying for her. All of the heifers 

 raised will not turn out well, and some of them will have to be 

 sold to the butcher at a loss. This will add something like 

 $10.00 to the cost of those that do turn out well, so that the 

 figure kept in mind for raising good heifers to 2 years old should 

 be $75.00. 



Having reared our heifers and milked them for three years 

 we should find that they stand clear on our books at five, or at 

 the most, six years old. We then have strong, healthy cows 

 that are producing an amount of milk that makes them profit- 

 able. They have paid us a good market price for all we have 

 fed them of our farm products. They have been producing 

 fertilizing material to keep up the farm and enabling us to raise 

 more and larger crops. We are doing a safe, permanent busi- 

 ness, that is improving the farm rather than depleting it. 



The cows that have paid for themselves by the time they are 

 six years old are just coming to maturity and will be able to do 

 their best for the next five or six years. They will produce 

 from forty to sixty dollars each year more than it takes to feed 

 them, and are worth $100 of any farmer's money. 



The feeding of dairy cows has become a serious matter in 

 these days of high prices for feeds. Too many farmers seem 

 inclined to cut down the grain ration because they cannot afford 

 to pay the price. It would be better to cut down the number of 

 cows ; get rid of all that will not pay well for extra grain and 

 then feed the remainder liberally. A large part of all food 

 eaten by the cow goes to keep up her physical system and to do 

 her work, and it is only the excess that is returned to the farmer 

 in the form of milk. It pays therefore to feed only such cows 

 as will return the excess in milk and not lay it up on their ribs 

 in the form of fat. Having secured such cows, the more feed 

 they will eat the better. 



The medium sized cows in the Connecticut College herd this 

 winter are being fed about as follows : Silage, 35 pounds ; 

 hay, 12 pounds; corn meal, 2 pounds; gluten feed, 2 pounds; 

 bran, 2 pounds ; cottonseed meal, 2 pounds. 



