130 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



Were not the milking organs of the cow made for use ? and should 

 they not continue in perfect working order during the whole period 

 of her vigorous life? While in my experience I have never had an 

 animal injured by injudicious feeding, I can cite numberless cases 

 of long lives of usefulness where the grain ration had been a twice 

 daily accompaniment from the first milking year, up to old age. 



I will give oae instance in support of this. The cow Pet, seven- 

 eighths Jersey and one-eighth Ayrshire, I raised from calfhood. 

 Every day of her life, when in milk, she received her provender 

 regularl}', and as regularly performed her work. When fourteen 

 years of age she gave 14 lbs. 2 oz. of butter in seven days, and 

 yielded 8,734 lbs. 15 oz. of milk during the year. From four tests, 

 made at different seasons of the year, to find the quantity of her 

 milk required to yield a pound of butter, it was found that her 

 butter yield for the year must have been over 425 lbs. I think this 

 yield of her fourteenth year was as large as she had ever made. 



When speaking of the spirit of manliness and independence of 

 the native working men of the United Stated as compared with the 

 laborers of other countries, we ascribe it to the influence of our free 

 government and institutions. Do we not lose sight of the fact that 

 the food of our native bread winners is of a much higher quality 

 than that to which their brothers in the Old World are subjected? 

 Is it not to this, more than all other causes, that they owe the 

 ability to perform with alacrity and skill those greater tasks ; and 

 which makes them so intoUerant of any aggression upon their 

 supposed rights? 



The average grain ration for the year, that I have mentioned, 

 viz . 700 pounds corn meal, 700 pounds cotton seed meal, and 600 

 pounds wheat bran, taking an average of prices for the last five 

 years, would cost not far from $25 on a line of railroad in central 

 Maine. During that part of the year that the cow is fed exclusively 

 from the barn, she will consume twenty pounds of hay per da}-. 

 Allowing her to be fed from the barn during the entire year she 

 will consume 3 tons 13 cwt. of hay, which at ^10 per ton will cost 

 $36.50. Added to the cost of grain, this gives the food cost of 

 keeping the cow at the barn during the entire year, without 

 recourse to pasturage, as $61.50. 



If she has good pasturage from Ma}- 15 to Sept. 15 — four 

 months — a saving of feeding 1 1-5 tons of hay would result, and 

 the cost of support for the year, be reduced to $51.50. This gives 



