STATE DAIEY ASSOCIATION. 695 



not only knew the Winslows laid great emphasis on the importance of 

 correct breeding, but he was well aware that the Rockdale herd was 

 carefully fed and attended to. He recognized the fact that his own cat- 

 tle looked thinner in flesh, more ill-kept, dirtier and more starved than 

 that of his now prosperous neighbor. 



After passing the customary comments on the weather and crops, John 

 remarked: "Mr. Lee. that bull you purchased of us sired a likely lot of 

 calves for you, didn't he?" "Yes," said Mr. Lee, "he certainly did. The 

 heifers now in milk are better than anything we have ever owned before. 

 Still, it seems to me that our herd is not doing as well as it should, and 

 our cattle are not in the condition that yours are. I have been wondering 

 how much feed and care had to do with this difference. Our barn is 

 fairly warm and comfortable and yet our cattle do not look thriving." 

 "How about your feeding and growing?" inquired John. "I feed plenty 

 of hay and straw," was the reply; "but I never have felt that we could 

 afford to feed much grain. The cost is too great. We don't use much 

 provender, I know." 



"It is sort of curious," remarked the junior member of the Winslow 

 firm, "but I have just been studying over a pamphlet which I received 

 from the Cornell University Experiment Station. You know that there 

 are in the different States agricultural experiment stations that are work- 

 ing in the interest of the farmer, studying problems in soils, fertilizers, 

 feeding stock, etc. Each of these stations publishes several times a year 

 bulletius as they are called, which tell about their experiments. These 

 are free to those who desire them. The professors at the agricultural col- 

 lege used to make students study over some of the more important bulle- 

 tins, and since I graduated I have been getting bulletins from some of 

 the States whose publications I thought would help me. Now, in this bul- 

 letin Professor Wing and Mr. Ford tell of 'An attempt to increase the 

 fat in milk by means of liberal feeding,' which is somewhat in the line 

 our conversation has fallen into. They planned an experiment to find 

 out whether a herd of dairy cows previously kept under adverse condi- 

 tions could be made more profitable by better feeding and care. So they 

 went out into the country near the station and found a herd of 21 cows 

 with a reputation of being poorly fed that had been on the same farm 

 for some time, that had a large proportion of comparatively young ani- 

 mals, most of which had calved as nearly as possible at the same time. 

 In this herd only four of the cows were more than eight years old, all but 

 one had calved within a period of two consecutive months, and all were 

 real thin in flesh, much as yours are. Like yours, they represented native 

 and mixed breeding. The experiment then begun by the station, ran 

 somewhat like this. A record was kept of the production of the herd in 

 milk and fat for one entire milking period on the farm of the owner, 

 without in any way changing the conditions under which the animals 

 had lived. The man who owned the cows. Mr. Gibson, fed and cared 



