FEEDING FOR QUALITY. 75 



From my own standpoint I advocate a mixture of these three 

 grains, leaving out oats because of their high cost. For a good 

 thrifiy cow it is just a moderate ration. Of course to young ani- 

 mals we would give much less, but to mature animals I would give 

 something like this : A quart and a half of corn meal, weighing 

 about two pounds and a quarter, a quart and a half of cotton seed 

 meal, weighing about the same, and two quarts of wheat bran 

 weighing a pound and a half. This gives six pounds of grain in 

 the mixture. I have never yet seen an instance where cows thus 

 fed for a reasonable length of time yielded butter off in flavor, 

 although of course it may not be so highly colored as that from corn 

 meal alone. But in feeding any animal upon a grain ration 

 even of this amount, before ihey should be fed up to the full ration 

 the woik should have gone on at least a year or two. A heifer^ 

 commencing when young on a small grain ration, and graduall}" 

 increasing the same as she develops and grows, can digest this fuU. 

 ration with none of the ill results which sometimes come from full 

 feeding when abruptly commenced. 



Clover is a most valuable element in our hay Crop and should 

 always have a place in the feed of dairy cows. It is a valuable 

 food in its contents, and gives a ver}' good flavor to butter and is 

 not injurious to the color. 



Hungarian grass is a valuable fodder product for dairy cows. In 

 my first experience in feeding it I particularly noticed the deep 

 color of the butter. When fed in the winter, dry, the butter was 

 very highly colored and of good flavor. It is a valuable fodder and 

 a strong one, of which we can readily raise two or three tons per 

 acre, according to the amount of fertilizer used, even upon exhausted 

 lands. It is a very economical grass fodder to grow and a profitable 

 one to feed for butter. It may be used to advantage in connection 

 with our coarse fodders, such as corn fodder, or fodders that are 

 injured in harvesting, or over-ripe hay, by cutting and scalding and 

 mixing thoroughly with the grain. Hay that is slightly moulded or 

 bleached in harvesting may be used to advantage in this way, while 

 if fed otherwise it might impart an undesirable flavor to the butter. 

 "When it is cut and mixed with corn meal and grain and the whole 

 allowed to steam together for a length of time the whole mass seems 

 to be thoroughly permeated by the flavor of the grain so that these 

 disagreeable flavors are largely done away with. Its effect seems 



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