No. 6. ^ DEPARTiV'IENT OF AGRICULTURE. 453 



Tliei'e is no ivjasou wliv any ihiiryniaii should leiiuiin iguoraul of 

 the foods, especially adapted to making' milk. Literature, bulletin! 

 and experiments are published by the dilTereut Agricultural Col- 

 leges and Experiment Stations, and can be had only for the asking — 

 besides a nnmber of excellent dairy jjapers, published weekly, vary- 

 ing in price from one to two c(Mits per week. The writer owes his 

 success to printer's ink and not to main strength and awkwardness, 

 ajid to that much abused word, experience. There is not one out of a 

 thousand who is an experimenter, anymore than there is one man 

 out of a million who is a discoverer. And the sooner a man know^s 

 where he stands, intellectually, as a dairyman, will determine largely 

 his success. 



Trickery and low cunning in the dairy business are as despicable 

 as in any other trader or calling in life. Accuracy and honesty 

 should be standard virtues of the dairyman. To olTer unwhole- 

 some food or water to a dairy animal is just as dishonest as to 

 serve an adulterated article of milk to a customer. 



An honest cow can't remain so with a dishonest owner. She will 

 either go to the butcher's block or to a better home. He is nearly 

 a bad man who abuses a cow; abuse will not make her better, but 

 <ood and human kindness have helped many a poor animal naturally 

 to become a better one. 



There is a registered cow in the writer's herd that a good judge 

 of a dairy animal would gladly hang a ribbon on with pride. But if 

 phe were to be measured b}- her milking one year ago she would 

 have been sold for bologna. The circumstances are these: She 

 was bred in the silk, her size, dairy type, barrel, udder, front and 

 back suggestive of Golden Lads, everything to commend her, and 

 a most excellent heifer she was wath her first calf. No better 

 breeder than she in the dairy. Yet for tw^o years she w^as really 

 Avhat would be called an unprofitable cow*. What was the cause, 

 and whose fault w'as it? The feeder tried to excuse himself in all 

 manner of excuses. The owner in sited that the trouble lay in the 

 feed and the care. The time to renew a cow is when she is dry and 

 unfortunate is the dairyman who does not know this. When the 

 period of lactation entirely ceased for Daisy Hillie Cream she was 

 fed and cared for as the ow^ner directed. She was developing splen- 

 didly for motherhood, udder began to distend nicely, all four quar- 

 ters evenly filling and swung a ponderous udder when she walked; 

 calved all right and is milking at this w'riting 38 to 40 pounds of 

 milk a day. Had this valuable cow been dealt with as thousands of 

 her sisters in this country she would have been ground into sausage 

 long before this, while to-day she is milking almost G (juarts of milk. 



It is high time to start a new breed of dairymen if it is not possi- 

 ble to improve the old ones. The motto of modern dairying is, choose 



