142 AGRICULTURE OF MAINE. 



A^eterinary profession. There is many a farmer whom I know 

 who is actually a better cow doctor than some veterinarians, 

 simply because those veterinarians have not studied cows, and the 

 farmer has studied cows and knows cow nature, and he, with a 

 few simple drugs, is enabled to more successfully treat the dis- 

 eases of the cow than the veterinarians who know only the sci- 

 ence of the profession. At this Dairy Conference, the same as 

 at all dairy conferences, the cow has been studied as an animal 

 machine, as something that we have with us and can get a little 

 more feed into, and draw out a little more milk and of a higher 

 quality, and receive more money, — man's greed to be satisfied. I 

 do not want to offer any criticism on what is being done. I 

 simply want to call your attention to the fact that the drift, the 

 tendency of the time, is to get high records from the cow, and 

 what do we see, from the veterinarian's standpoint, as the result? 

 The question is coming to me from the owners of herds of the 

 highest records, and some of them right from Maine, What is the 

 matter with the cow ?" There is trouble with the herds. Whence 

 came this cow that we are talknig about today ? Did God create 

 her? No, God did not create her. The modern dairy cow, that is 

 producing what Air. Smith and other gentlemen here have shown, 

 is largely a creature of man's imagination and his development. 

 All that God created of the cow long ages ago was the beast, the 

 same as other beasts. There was none of them that had a record 

 of 3, 4, 6 or 8 thousand pounds of milk containing 4, 5, 6 and 7 

 per cent, butter fat. No, her early history as we have it, is sim- 

 ply that of a beast roaming about, giving just milk enough for 

 her ofifspring. God did not create the cow to give milk for man. 

 Man has simply taken her and developed her. It is of the 

 utmost importance to you and the rising generation to study 

 this condition. We find the cow roaming about upon the earth 

 and producing milk sufficient to rear her calf, and reproduce her 

 kind. How long did she give milk? Just as long as her baby 

 needed it. about four months. That was the original cow, as 

 history records her. Man domesticated her. He began to use 

 her milk, and then, not being satisfied with the quantity of milk 

 she gave, and not being satisfied with a four months' milking 

 cow, he began, through a system of selection and feeding, to 

 develop the cow, and we have kept breeding up and feeding up 

 until we have developed a cow today with an udder of four, 



