DAIRY MEE;TING. 167* 



This all cannot help admitting. We can only attribute this con- 

 dition to the fact that first, the reproductive organs in our 

 heifers are not started right and then the heifers are not fed 

 right. Nature's laws have been interfered with in some way; 

 their breeding and milking don't go together. The machine is 

 out of whack. It would not have been thus had all parts of the 

 cow machine been started as nature designed and then a class 

 of food and care given which would not allow one part of the 

 machine to take all the energy from the other. The belt that 

 runs the calf factory has been allowed to get rotten from lack 

 of attention, not because it has worn out by early being put in 

 use. We are running one part of our machine at a rapid speed 

 and keeping it well oiled, while we do not oil the journals of the 

 calf machine at all. The dairies of today are not the dairies of 

 twenty or even ten years ago. Our father's cow was thought 

 to be a hummer when she produced 5,000 pounds of 3 or 3^ 

 per cent milk. The general run of dairy cows did not produce 

 3,000 pounds of milk. The rule is now 5,000 pounds of 5 per 

 cent milk. We are daily hearing of 7,000 pounds of 4 per cent 

 milk or 10,000 pounds of 3 per cent milk. These yields are com- 

 mon and no doubt can be maintained and even increased, but 

 if the cow is to produce this amount and at the same time yearly 

 give birth to a living vigorous calf for a period of years, we 

 must start the calf machine at work when nature calls for it, 

 of that I am fully convinced. Then we must feed the whole 

 organism, not a part of it as some are doing, and as the general 

 tendency of cattle feeding in the east is drifting toward, I am 

 sorry to say. I refer to the milk producing functions. I realize 

 it is hard for us all to get out of old ruts and the notions that 

 were taught us in the days of our childhood and youth. 

 Father's cow under father's care and management did fairly 

 well for him; she usually dropped a calf yearly and produced 

 about what milk the calf needed with a little to spare for family 

 use for about eight months. This was about her limit, but we 

 want our cow under our system of breeding and feeding to 

 produce milk enough for two calves for four months, and then 

 to keep fairly well two more calves for four months; then to 

 feed a calf for two months more. This wonderful power that 

 our more modern cow possesses has to an extent made a corre- 



