l66 AGRICULTURE OF MAINE. 



they come to their full maturity. It is not the cow that became 

 a mother at a tender age when well fed that becomes sterile at 

 five years of age nearly as frequently as it is the cow who first 

 became a mother at three or three and a half years of age. 

 Wherever I have found a lack of vitality and a seriously 

 dwarfed condition in the early bred heifer, I have always found 

 said heifer or cow had not been fed as her physical needs 

 required. It was lack of an invigorating, nerve and force build- 

 ing food which caused the debilitated condition and not the 

 early motherhood. A careful study of dairy cows will show 

 to those who study conditions unbiasedly that it is the late bred 

 heifer which will more likely prove promising for one or two 

 years and then disappoint us in her milk yield, no matter how 

 well we may feed her on a milk producing ration. And that 

 brings us to another question in the feed and care of the 20th 

 century dairy cow. Our line of study of cattle foods is largely 

 from one point of view, and that is to ascertain what food or 

 combination of foods will send the greater yield of milk into 

 the pail, and not attention enough is being paid to the study of 

 foods which will sustain our milking machine, the cow. Our 

 working machine must be so fed as to not only produce milk, 

 but also nourish, sustain and give birth to another machine. 

 When we study cow feeds from any other basis than this we 

 are getting off of the proper line which leads to the goal of suc- 

 cess. I sometimes feel like saying to a goodly number of -New 

 York scientists and dairymen, "You are in serious danger of 

 having an attack of milk fever." In fact I know of a few 

 who I really believe have got a milk fever or such a mania 

 over milk and large yields of it that their cow reason has nearly 

 left them. They can talk cow only as they speak of her ability 

 to eat a certain class of food and convert it into milk. It is 

 milk and more milk and better milk, and they are only satisfied 

 with a food that will cause the old cow to produce a little more 

 milk. But rarely is a word heard concerning a food that will 

 keep the cow machine in repair, that it may last as a producer 

 of milk at a profit into old age, which simply means that our 

 best bred heifers may be lasting cows and yearly breeders. It 

 is easy to see that under our present system of feeding our best 

 bred cows and heifers are failing to breed for us as they should. 



