90 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



do well in the winter, I would take care to provide them with 

 water as warm as I should wish them to have in the summer. 



Mr. Starrett of Warren. I know of a very successful farmer 

 who built a shed over his well, and set a boiler so that he could 

 heat water to use in feeding his stock, and to take the chill off the 

 water that his cattle drank. Ue considered it a decided advan- 

 tage. 



Mr. Mallett, Member from Sagadahoc. I wish to say that we 

 want to arrive at something definite in this discussion about feed- 

 ing cows ; we want to know not only what to feed to make the 

 cow a milk producer, but what to feed to make her a butter pro- 

 ducer. We have present with us Mr. Work who is a milk pro- 

 ducer and Mr. Gowell who is a butter producer, and each feeds 

 his cows with reference to this point. I think we may hear from 

 them with profit, 



Mr. Work. I would say in reference to feeding cows for milk 

 that I have never used any science, and have never tried to 

 determine which is the best way. I have been in the business 

 about eighteen years, and for the last eight or ten years I have 

 used shorts or bran and Indian meal — one quart of meal and four 

 quarts of shorts a day. I don't know that it has made much 

 difference whether I have used warm water or cold. I liave given 

 them both, winter and summer. I give my cows about all the 

 good hay they can eat. I change the hay occasionally, and if 

 they get a little cloyed I put them on coarser hay. I have thought 

 that for all the grain I have fed, my cattle wanted as much hay as 

 though I had not fed it ; it would eeem just to give them an appe- 

 tite for the hay. I have kept cows until they were twenty years 

 old, and I never knew of any of them being injured. 



Mr. Gowell. I have a small butter dairy of five cows — Jerseys 

 and grade Jerseys. My pasture is stocked with sheep up to 

 about its full capacity, consequently I feed one quart of Indian 

 meal daily, or the amount of shorts which is equal to it. I save 

 the manure at night, and feed what hay they require during the 

 season. In its season they receive fodder corn. The butter pro- 

 duction is a little over two hundred and fifty pounds per year to a 

 cow. I fear that if I were in the habit of feeding my cows as 

 heavily as Mr. Work does, I should in time ruin them. I have 

 ccjnstructed a tank under my tie-up to hold both the solid and 

 liquid manure. I feed some four tons of shorts during the winter. 

 I think a ton of shorts to be more than equal to three tons of hay. 



