40 ' BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



and escape into another, if there is another. Now, my cows, 

 while roaming in the same pasture from day to day, from 

 week to week, from month to month, are perfectly satisfied 

 with their condition. They don't seek to reach out into my 

 neighbors' fields at all. I learned this by accident, just as I 

 have learned whatever little I know, by accident. My neigh- 

 bor east of me is a good, clever neighbor, but he belongs to 

 that class of persons to whom the boy belonged who said that 

 he " didn't care whether school kept or not." He is a slow 

 and easy fellow. He never puts his cows up, and never takes 

 them out from his pasture from one year to another. I divided 

 my pasture into two fields, when I commenced dairying, and 

 this man, this slip-shod, hap-hazard dairyman right by my 

 side, beat me out of sight with his one pasture, where he 

 turned on his herd early in the season. His pasture Avould 

 carry, acre for acre, more stock than mine, and I began .to 

 look at it. My farm was in the best condition. It was bet- 

 ter situated, it had a better sort of grass, the grass grew 

 better, and I had on the average ten times as much spare feed 

 as he had, and yet he could beat me. As I say, I began to 

 look at it, and I wiped out my division fence, and that im- 

 proved it ; I turned out my cows as early in the spring as 

 would answer to turn them out, and there I made a big im- 

 provement ; and I have come up to him and beat him sky-high 

 ever since. 



Mr. A. H. Ward, of Bridgewater. It seems to me possible 

 to explain the difference. One gentleman says that clover 

 diminishes the quantity of milk from the cow, and another 

 gentleman says that clover increases the quantity. Both gen- 

 tlemen are undoubtedly correct. In this part of the country, 

 as far as I know, it has always beeii understood that clover 

 increased the milk, and was actually the best food that could 

 be given. The gentleman from Herkimer refers to June 

 grass. Now, it is known that in Kentucky, in the blue-grass 

 region there, not only is the quantity of milk from the cows 

 large, but the animals are of large size. The grass grows 

 well, and one reason of that is, that it is a limestone region, 

 and there is a large amount of phosphate in the soil, furnish- 

 ing bone to the animal and richness to the grass, to put on 

 the tat or increase the quantity of milk. We know that when 



