DAIRY FARMING. 25 



Feed at regular intervals and do not on any account over-feed. 

 Over-loading the stomach after a long fast is almost sure to be fol- 

 lowed bv indigestion and scours, diseases which arc very common 

 among young calves, but nevertheless dangerous and nuich to be 

 dreaded. If scours makes its appearance in the slightest degree, 

 then reduce the quantity of the feed at once. If it continues three 

 or four days, then you have a sick calf to doctor. It is not only 

 better but cheaper to keep a calf or any other animal health}' than 

 to cure it after disease sets in. Animals that arc treated as they 

 should be, fed with suitable, nutritious food, housed in comfortable, 

 dry quarters, and given frequent access to pure water, will seldom 

 be attacked by any form of disease. Were 1 a Maine farmer I 

 think I would do as I do now, raise most of my calves in the fall 

 and winter, and make most of my butter in the winter season when 

 1 would have jilenty of time to do both well. 



If every other farmer made butter in the winter I presume I should 

 change to a summer dairy, for I find that it is often better to keep 

 out of beaten paths, and do that which others forget or neglect to 

 do. Winter dairying now pays better than summer darying for 

 those who can take their choice in seasons, and I am sure the fall 

 is the best time to begin to raise a crop of calves. If dropped in 

 the fall they early learn to eat dry hay, which is much better for 

 themj^than grass so long as the}- are freely fed upon milk ; they are 

 easily cared for, no flies are tormenting them, and by the opening 

 of spring they are ready to turn away to pasture to feed and 

 o-row. With six to eight months of feeding upon skimmed milk, 

 o-ood hay and a little grain they are ready to make the very best use 

 of their summer pasture, and will at eighteen months old be larger 

 and in better shape than most heifers at two years old, raised in the 

 spring and treated during the summer in the usual way. By feeding 

 and treating such heifers well you will at two and a half or three 

 years old have animals that will give as much milk, make as much 

 butter, or, if they should prove too beefy, make as much good beef 

 as some of your inferior old cows. There are always some animals 

 in every herd that ought to be turned into beef, and when such are 

 found the earlier they are fattened and sold the more profitable their 

 fattening will be. If we are to make anything in New England now by 

 feedino- for beef it must be with young animals that have not completed 

 their growth. It is claimed by some that the one great failing in the 

 practice of Jersey breeders is in not killing oue-half the calves that 



