HOW TO FEED A COW. 47 



twice a clay (I let them out the second time just before feed- 

 ing) , I do it more for the purpose of cleaning and dusting 

 the stable, than I do for giving them an opportunity to drink 

 more than once a day. Feeding roots, however, has the same 

 effect. I guess they will drink a good deal less water when 

 being fed roots. I find it, also, a good practice to feed regu- 

 larly. I believe that a cow will do much better on five 

 pounds of hay fed at regular intervals, than she will with an 

 extra five pounds fed hap-hazard, just when convenient. 

 The cow, as I said before, is a creature of habit, like her 

 owner, although she never forms so many bad habits as her 

 owner; yet she is like a child, and becomes impatient at 

 delay when the regular time for feeding oi milking passes by. 

 She should be fed by the clock; regularly fed, in quantities 

 such as she requires. 



Now, if you adopt the Barre system of feeding, adopt the 

 method which I suggest. Instead of offering your poorest 

 and most worthless fodder first, feed it last ; and all that the 

 cow leaves of this — after she has eaten all she will of the 

 good fodder — will do for bedding ; but don't attempt to 

 bamboozle the cow and cheat yourselves. 



Mr. J. T. Ellsworth, of Barre. We should understand 

 from what the gentleman from Herkimer has said, that he 

 has but one kind of food, and that is early grass ; and early 

 grass that he calls hay, cut a little later, and mangold-wurt- 

 zel. That is very desirable. If I go West, I want to go to 

 just that section where they have that kind of feed to give 

 their cows ; but it is not so here. I think we shall make up 

 our minds, after hearing his remarks, that "all is not gold 

 that glitters." We have all kinds of coarser fodder to work 

 up somehow, and particularly this year. If we commenced 

 our grass early, we didn't make good early-grass of it ; some 

 of it was pretty poor hay, pretty badly-washed hay. We 

 have more or less straw of all kinds ; and corn fodder, and hay 

 that was cut late, and washed hay, which we wish to work 

 up in our dairy stock ; for we have mostly dairy stock. We 

 cannot compete in raising steers with the stock raisers of 

 Kentucky. I could demonstrate the results of my method 

 of feeding, if any gentlemen would go to my barn at the 

 present time. We had pretty hard seasons for grass this 



