DAIRY MEETING. 93 



plant whether the material comes from Germany or the stomach 

 of the cow ? Chemicals are plant food, and if bought and used 

 right they are profitable plant food. Otherwise I should have 

 been in the bankruptcy court long ago. That is all that I have 

 to say along this line. But I stand everywhere as an exponent 

 of a larger purpose and effort on the part of the splendid men 

 of the farms of New England as the means to the higher and 

 fuller life they desire to live; not for larger farms necessarily, 

 but for a larger eft'ort on the farms they possess, knowing that 

 they can attain more wealth and live life on a higher horizon, 

 one on the level of the very best class of workers in our cities, 

 and when they accomplish this the drift of the boys will be 

 towards the farms instead of from them. 



Now I must turn hvirriedly to the consideration of a few 

 problems in the feeding of these cows. Over in New Hamp- 

 shire where I reside, our crops were cut about in the middle by 

 a tremendous drought and the problem arose, "What are you 

 going to do about it? Are you going to sell all those young 

 animals? Are you going to sell your cows or feed them low 

 this winter and thus save your fodder?" I suppose you have 

 the same problem here. Several experiments, notably one made 

 in Missouri, have shown one truth that I think is a truth, that 

 if you feed one growing animal very high and another one 

 medium, not poorly (I am not talking about a starved animal 

 but a medium fed one) the next summer on good pasturage 

 the high fed animal will not grow as fast as the medium fed 

 one; and the medium fed animal, just kept fairly growing, may 

 nearly catch up with the well fed one if the pasture is a good 

 one. I believe it to be a general law that an animal may be 

 pushed by special effort to a point where the gain does not 

 follow in the ratio of increased food fed. It follows, then, that 

 those who have young stock should not starve them but may 

 feed on a little lower level in emergencies like this than those 

 men do who believe in pushing an animal to the vitmost from 

 the day it starts until it is fully grown. The same line of 

 thought might be applied to an animal at rest, — a cow not in 

 full milk or rather closing her milking period. If you have a 

 cow giving 150 pounds of milk a year, get rid of her, especially 

 in a year like this, but in no year has she milking value. But 



