370 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



a little short of the utmost possible amount they could consume 

 would be the point at which they would thrive best. 



Ma. Percival. The lessons we learned last winter, although 

 very costly, are worth all they cost, and, and if I live long enough 

 I mean to make them pay 1 me a profit over their cost. The truth 

 is, that by our former methods of feeding, about a quarter or a 

 third of our feed has been lost for want of knowing how to feed. 

 If we are feeding animals for future usefulness, the method used 

 should be very different from what it would if the object was to 

 make beef in the shortest time and at the smallest cost. If the 

 latter be the object, after the structure is properly formed and the 

 foundation of the animal is properly secured, if you want to get it 

 into money as soon as possible, instead of turning him out to 

 gather his food in the pasture, put all the concentrated food into 

 him that you can make him consume, and get him into the market 

 as quick as you can. If you can do by concentrated food in one 

 month what would take a year of ordinary keep, you will save 

 eleven months support of the animal. 



You must decide what you want to feed for and feed accord- 

 ingly. We need to know a great deal more than we do about the 

 nature and character and effects of the different kinds of food 

 which we use. We need to know which kind or kinds and what 

 proportions will make the most bone, or muscle, or fat, or milk, 

 or yit Id the most strength for labor ; and all these things we are 

 too ignorant of. We do not honor our calling ; do not properly 

 prepare ourselves for it. Look at the/ time and money and study 

 that is expended to make an average lawyer, an average doctor, or 

 average clergyman, and compare them with what is expended to 

 make an average farmer ! But the firmer needs more than either 

 of them, and we shall never fully understand our business nor 

 command the position and influence in the world which our calling 

 ought to have, until we are educated up to our real needs. 



Mr. Gilbert. There can be no doubt, as I before remarked, 

 that the first necessity of the feeder is to understand clearly what 

 he is aiming at. If we are feeding for re-production, that is one 

 thing ; if to obtain the greatest amount of growth in the least 

 time, that is another ; if we are feeding for milk, that is still 

 another. If a man has a herd of thoroughbred cattle which he is 

 feeding for re-production, of course it is not best for that man to 

 give the greatest possible amount of feed that those animals can 

 d. and assimilate. It is not necessary; it is not profitable. 



