IvEXTUCKY BLUE-GRASS. 23 



kimer farmers — attempt to do ; root it out and destroy it, root 

 and branch, as unfit to be grown. Why, it is what in Ken- 

 tucky makes the beef and those enormous Shorthorn cattle. 

 It is the Kentucky blue-grass. You cannot grow it here, 

 neither can we in Herkimer, to that degree of perfection to 

 which it grows in the limestone soil of .Kentucky in a cliniate 

 peculiarly adapted to its growth ; but it is Kentucky blue- 

 grass nevertheless. Now, gentlemen, I hope you will think 

 more of it than you ever did before. It will stand your 

 droughts better than any other grass you can name. It will 

 make two distinct growths here each year. Take my word for 

 it, gentlemen, white-clover is your poorest pasture grass ; al- 

 though not strictly a grass, we rank it under that name. If 

 any dairyman present has a herd of cows running on a white- 

 clover pasture, that do not shrink in their milk when it gets 

 up so that they can get a good bite of it, when it gets in blos- 

 som, let him rise up ; I want to see that man. No]:)ody gets 

 up. (Laughter.) Gentlemen, it is, the poorest of all your 

 pasture grasses, and yet I love to see it grow ; but when 

 my white-clover gets to a good size, my cows shrink in spite 

 of fate, unless I turn them oif. I can pasture them on a 

 white-clover pasture and have them shrink, and I can turn them 

 in where there is not a pafticle of it and have them gain on the 

 shorter feed. You can do the same thing if you will try it. 



If the food of a cow affects the quality of the milk, — 

 which the Germans deny, — June grass produces the best 

 milk in the world. I am not fully prepared either to accept 

 or reject the doctrine laid down by some of the professors at 

 Hohenheim. I have fed cows that were out to pasture, that 

 had all the grass they could eat, even if they sat up nights to 

 eat; I have fed them all kinds of food, in addition, with- 

 out being able to increase the quantity or improve the quality 

 of the milk produced. Hence I say that grass- is the food 

 for the cow ; and I- say, in connection with it, that corn is 

 unnatural food for the cow. You may feed any of our grains, 

 ground fine, — as they always should be to be fed, — to a cow 

 or any animal you are about to slaughter, and you will find 

 that it passes through the first stomach, by the second, 

 through the third, on to the fourth, and a part of it even be- 



