34 EXPERIMENTAL FARM 8 



4 GEORGE V., A. 1914 



The eighteen horses perform all labour for the Field Husbandry, Horticultural, 

 Cereal, Botanical and other Divisions, as well as road making, messenger service and 

 trucking for the offices. During the past year, the teams performed 6,452 days' labour 

 which, at 70 cents, gives a total valuation of $4,516.40 returns. 



ISTo experimental horse feeding was conducted during the past year. 



DAIRY CATTLE. 



The pure-bred dairy herds now in the stables are Holstein, Ayrshire, Guernsey, 

 French Canadian and Jersey. The purpose of keeping these herds is to acquire more 

 information along the lines of experimental breeding and feeding, to distribute a 

 small number of breeding cattle at reasonable figures, to obtain milk with which to 

 conduct dairy manufacturing and marketing experiments, and to demonstrate the 

 most modern and advisable methods of economic dairy husbandry. Two grade milch 

 cow herds, Holstein and Ayrshire, containing 12 head each, were established during 

 the past year. These cows are kept for several reasons, namely: (1) to supply milk 

 for dairy experimental manufacture; (2) to test the high-quality grade cow for economy 

 of production; (3) to test the grade against the pure-bred cow, -and (4) to obtain the 

 female offspring from these cows and sired by the best obtainable pure-bred bulls of 

 the breeds, which should show the advantage of continued and persistent upgrading of 

 the grade herds. This latter experiment is well under way on several branch Farms. 

 Data of such import cannot be acquired too rapidly. 



Feeding Dairy Cattle. 



The possibility of feeding 138 head of cattle, containing 78 milch cows, on a 

 200-acre farm which includes only 19 acres of pasture, would scarcely be credited by 

 the average farmer; yet this has been clearly demonstrated, and a wide margin of 

 profit shown. This is made possible only by the use of a large amount of soiling 

 crops, and a heavy acreage of corn for ensilage. Meals are fed to cows during the 

 pasture season as well as in the winter. The profit accruing from meal feeding of 

 milch cows on pasture has been demonstrated beyond a doubt and an increasingly 

 large number of farmers are annually adopting this method. 



Several dairy feeding experiments of a more or less extensive nature have been 

 started during the year, but to date there have been but few conclusive results. The 

 value of molasses as a food for dairy cattle is receiving marked prominence from 

 many feed companies. Many farmers are now using either the blackstrap feeding 

 molasses or a patented molasses meal. To gain more data on this subject, a series of 

 experiments was started, the first stage of which pointed to the following facts: 

 (1) When molasses replaces a meal (composed of 6 parts bran, 3 parts gluten meal, 

 2 parts cottonseed meal, and 2 parts dried brewers' grains) pound for pound to the 

 extent of 10 per cent of total meal fed, it proves quite satisfactory; this is due 

 probably in large measure to the increasing of the palatability of the feed. (2) When 

 molasses replaces the meal to the extent of 20 per cent, the cows dropped in their 

 milk flow and milk cost, to produce, more per hundred pounds; it is worthy of note 

 that on the 20 per cent molasses (li to 2 pounds per day) the cows gained in weight 

 and condition. (3) When molasses replaced meal to the extent of 30 per cent, the 

 cows dropped heavily in milk flow and milk cost more per hundred pounds. This 

 quantity of molasses slightly scoured the cows and caused loss in bodily weight. The 

 above is but a brief example of the investigational work being carried on with this 

 and other foodstuffs which are in common use on our Canadian dairy farms. 



Milking Machines. 



The scarcity of good labour is the greatest problem facing the Canadian dairy- 

 man of to-day, and nowhere else in his work as much as in the milking of cows. So 



