1906.] DISCUSSION. 255 



Mr. H. O. AvERiLL. Mr. Chairman, I was somewhat sur- 

 prised to hear the speaker recommend that cows be kept out of 

 doors more, and that they be kept in cold bams. Now if I 

 were to keep animals for the purpose of seeing- to how good 

 an old age I could keep them, that principle might be the correct 

 one from my point of view, but if I am going to keep dairy 

 cow^s for the purpose of trying to get the most profit out of 

 those cows every year, it would be my theory that we should 

 keep them in comfortable, warm barns. It would be my theory 

 still further that they should be kept in the barns especially in 

 unpleasant or inclement weather. Perhaps it would be well to 

 let them out to get the fresh air for a short period of time, but 

 I believe that cows which are kept in warm barns, if they are 

 let out in wintry or inclement weather that the contrast from 

 going from the warm barn out into the cold air is not beneficial, 

 and especially so if they are allowed to remain, even if it is not 

 a stormy day, for any great length of time. The change will cer- 

 tainly be a shock to the vital energies of those animals, to their 

 systems, such as will make them susceptible to tuberculosis, if 

 tuberculosis exists in that herd. I think it will be a shock to 

 their systems such as would injure their production of milk. 

 I should like to ask the speaker if he would advise a dairyman, 

 who was striving to secure the greatest profit each year from 

 his herd, to leave his cows out in cold weather in the winter 

 time? 



Prof. Shaw. I would say in answer to that question, un- 

 hesitatingly, no. I am in entire agreement with every word 

 that you have said. I probably did not make myself as clear 

 as I should have done in speaking on that question. The point 

 I wanted to emphasize was this : that, in my judgment, a great 

 many dairymen have injured their cows by keeping them in 

 stables too warm, in the first place, and too illy ventilated in 

 the second place. I do not know^ whether you Connecticut 

 dairymen have made that mistake. I do know that many Min- 

 nesota dairymen have made it, and with but one result, that the 



