124 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



upon your farm, and you can control the feeding of certain cold, 

 wet lands more perfectly where you change your stock from one 

 field to another. But the amount of milk produced as shown by 

 the pail, and the amount of butter and cheese produced from the 

 cows, is claimed, and I believe admitted, to be greater where they 

 can have as nearly as possible the entire range which they are 

 allowed to have during the whole season. Some of our best 

 farmers adopt the system of two pastures, a night pasture, and a 

 day pasture only. Now, the quiet condition that those animals 

 assume is wonderful; they accept the condition of things; they go 

 down into the low land or swamp, and fill up down there in part, 

 and part of the time they graze upon the dry lands. They do it 

 every day. They seek some of those coarse grasses ; they seem 

 to like to rasp their throats, as was said yesterday, with some- 

 thing coarse, while they are also partaking of the finer grasses. 

 It seems, on the whole, I think, to be admitted, that you save 

 fencing, you save in the quiet of the cows, and in the produce of 



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the milk, by letting them have as large a range as you design for 

 them, rather than to change them from one field to another. I 

 started in my farming with the idea that I would do better than 

 the old custom ; I would change my dairy. My fields were well 

 enclosed and provided with water, and 1 was enabled to do it. I 

 turned my cows into a field of fine flush growth the first of June, 

 and the first two or three days they ate too much ; the next two 

 or three days they were just right ; gave a full flow of milk, and all 

 comfortable. The next two days, — suppose a field lasting about 

 a week, — they began to be uneasy ; they were looking out for 

 fresh pasturage. The result was, when they were turned into a 

 new field they again ate too much. Seeing my neighbors pursu- 

 ing a different course, altheugh I did not believe was just right, 

 I have been induced so far as possible to adopt it. I grant that 

 the manure is not so well distributed ; they will have favorite 

 lying places, favorite places of resort, so that some of the pastures 

 will be deprived of what should be dropped upon them to fertilize. 

 We all notice a very great difference in the quality as well as the 

 quantity of the milk produced when our cows are in one field, and 

 When they are in another. No matter in what field our animals 

 are kept, we cannot go back of this ; there is something in the 

 animals, feed them as we may, that tells in the milkpail, and in 

 the churn ; and here we come to a point which I propose particu- 

 larly to call to your notice. 



