2Q BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



are dropped before they are allowed to perpetuate their kind. You 

 who have less costl}' stock, which yon are desirous to improve, have 

 no such temptation to keep to sell what is not worth raising to keep. 

 When 30ur good heifers come to be from four to seven years old 

 you ma}" put a price upon them that will pay you well for raising. 

 Some farmer li\'ing in the outer portion of the milk producing belt 

 will probably want them to keep a few years ; but if they are not 

 taken until they have reached their highest condition as dairy cows 

 and are getting to that point where they will soon begin to go the 

 other way, then put a price upon them that will place them in the 

 inner portion of the milk producing belt, where they will for a period 

 of eighteen months be fed all they will bear and then turned off well 

 fattened for the butcher. If you will bu}- but a single ton of good 

 fine bone fertilizer for each animal sold off the farm you can increase 

 the productive capacit}- of 3-our land so that you will be enabled to 

 keep not only the dairj" hei'd of milch cows but also another herd of 

 young growing cattle. I would give the pastures to the young 

 stock and grow more forage for feeding at the stable to the matui'er 

 cows. In marking out this coui'se for Maine farmers I am only de- 

 scribing a system which I have follow^ed many years with satisfac- 

 tory^ results, though I doubt not with much less profit than might 

 be obtained from the same system introduced and carried out upon 

 the better lands of your State. 



