State Agricultural Society. 549 



the value of labor and of manure allows its adoption; it is as well for 

 the cow as tethering, and much less wasteful of the grass. A system of 

 complete soiling on green rye. green oats, grass, clover, and fodder corn, 

 is to be recommended whenever the value of manure indicates that soil- 

 ing would be profitable. All soiling crops may be wilted with advan- 

 tage before being fed, and with fodder corn a very thorough wilting, 

 even lying the whole day in a hot sun, is decidedly beneficial. 



It is a good custom in Summer, at milking time, to give each cow a 

 quart of bran, not so much for the nutriment it contains, as to make 

 them glad to come to the milking stalls, and to keep them quiet while 

 being milked. For Winter food, nothing can equal early-cut hay and 

 well cured clover hay, and these may be profitably supplemented with 

 oats, bran, and a very little oil meal or Indian corn meal. Indian meal 

 should, in the case of a breeding herd, be used with caution and in lim- 

 ited quantity. For a " butter butcher " it has no equal. Fresh cows 

 fed eight quarts of clear meal per day (or as much as they will eat) give 

 very rich milk, with a good proportion of butter, and butter of a very 

 good quality, and as they dry off are fat enough for the shambles; but 

 in a breeding and milking race like the Jerseys, where it is especially 

 desirable not to encourage too great a tendency to take on flesh, and 

 where the cows should at no time be fat, even when dried off for calving, 

 Indian meal is perhaps the most undesirable food that can be given. 



Often, where herds of good Jerseys are kept, a full supply of the best 

 hay cannot be obtained. In such cases steaming may be resorted to 

 with decided profit and advantage; or, if good hay and interior hay 

 or cornstalks be cut together, and mixed with bran, ground oats, and a 

 moderate quantity of Indian meal, the good flavor of the meal and of 

 the better hay is diffused throughout the mass, the whole being made 

 palatable and nutritious. 



As suggested above, during the first one or two years, the Jersey calf 

 or heifer should be fed on forage which, "while sufficiently nutritious, 

 is rather bulky than concentrated, in order that there may be developed 

 a good capacity of the digestive organs. 



Mr. Charles L. Sharpless, in a communication to the writer (June, 

 eighteen hundred and sixty-nine), gives his views of the proper treat- 

 ment of Jersey cattle, as follows: 



"There is no better feed in Summer for the Jersey cow than the 

 natural grasses of the rich old pastures, abounding in blue grass, white 

 clover, and sweet-scented vernal. In almost every such field you find 

 some orchard grass and red clover, which, from increasing the variety, 

 add to the value of the pasture. As soon as the cows begin to fall oft in 

 yield, change them, if possible, to another field. If the fields can be so 

 arranged that there will be at the rate of an acre for each cow, and 

 there be three such fields, each of which can be pastured a week at a 

 time, it will make an agreeable change for them. As to how many cows 

 can be kept on a given number of acres, it may be safely laid down that 

 if the pasture be an old one, and be kept rich by an annual top-dressing, 

 and if there be judicious arrangements for changing, one animal may be 

 kept to each acre. On the Island of Jersey, such is the luxuriance of the 

 pasture, that the practice of tethering enables them to keep thriftily at 

 the rate of two and one half animals for every acre. 



" The idea that many have, that meadow pasture is the best, is a mis- 

 take. The meadow grasses lack in sweetness and in the nutritive and 

 milk and butter qualities. There are no better pastures than those on 



