REARING AND FEEDING FARM STOCK. J59 



to set a high value on it, and it was used very sparingly. There 

 arc now ten bushels used where there was a peck then. Of late 

 years 1 have kept some cows for the sale of milk. I wanted to 

 know wimt.it would cost to keep them. By careful experiment 

 and actual weighing, 1 found that twenty pounds of good hay 

 \ ould keep a cow better than they are usually kept. For winter 

 milk it is necessary that some provender should be given in addi- 

 tion to hay, and I began with the impression that ten bushels of 

 corn was as good as a ton of hay, and fed accordingly. I soon 

 found out ray mistake, and lately when hay was scarce I wanted 

 to get along with as little as would answer, and make up the 

 necessary food with meal. So I went on the supposition that 

 twenty bushels of meal were equal to twenty hundred pounds of 

 hay, but I found out that that was not enough in my experi- 

 ence. Then I hunted up what the books had to say about it, and 

 I found it stated that it required sixty-four pounds of corn to be 

 equal to a hundred pounds of good hay. That just about agreed 

 with my experience, and after finding myself backed up by so 

 good authorities quoted in the Reports, I expressed my views 

 pretty fully at Ihe club and with neighbors, but nobody agreed 

 with me at first. We had some pretty lively discussions about 

 it. Finally I weighed out ten pounds and twenty pounds of hay, 

 and meal equal to ten pounds of hay, reckoning ten bushels 

 and fifteen bushels and twenty bushels equal to a ton of hay, and 

 set them before them. When they came to see the different 

 messes as actually weighed out they all came over to- my way of 

 thinking. 



Mr. Percival. Did you feed the meal wet or dry? 



Mr. Thayer. Usually dry. I tried both ways and found no 

 difference. If my cows could not get all the water they need, 

 earily, I would feed wet. 



Mr. Percival. Did you cut the hay ? 



Mr. Thayer. I fed it just as it came from the mow. 



Mr. Percival. Did you give the cows all they would eat of hay 

 and meal ? 



Mr. Thayer. Not all the meal they would eat, because a com- 

 ing-in cow will eat more than is for her good. 



Mr. Percival. Do you believe it expedient to give a cow all 

 she will eat to make her thrive and do well ? 



Mr. Thayer. There you touch a point where I differ from a 

 majority of farmers. It is thought among us, that if you give an 



