RAISING COLTS. 121 



try good, you will get pretty near what you want. You must 

 feed for the purpose — one way for one object and another way 

 for another. Take the pig. The pig is meant to eat. It is the 

 business of the pig to eat ; you are not making milk there. Fat- 

 ten a Shorthorn — you may make beef — not a dairy cow. And 

 so it is with horses. Never expect to have a good horse if you 

 cram your colt ; it cannot be done. The old adage in Vermont, 

 "A ragged colt makes the best horse," means everything. It is 

 not the tendency in a horse to make fat, but the tendency estab- 

 lished in his life, when he is young, to make muscle and nerve 

 that is the desirable thing. Your colt, then, should run with 

 its dam until it has reached that condition of the stomach which 

 will enable it to digest solid food. Then take your colt and let 

 it have abundance of free cold air to begin with ; and in addition 

 to that, avoid the feeding of grain until it is three years old, as 

 you would avoid feeding brandy and water to your children 

 when they are little. It is astonishing how many nice colts are 

 ruined by the excessive use of stimulating grain food in their 

 infancy, so to speak. Let your colt mature slowly, its bone 

 grow properly, its digestive functions be properly organized, its 

 flesh in the proper condition — never fat — horse fat is the poorest 

 fat in the world — keep it upon the best English hay in winter 

 and good sweet pasture grass in summer, and you will make the 

 best possible horse of that colt. 



I state these facts in regard to feeding because they have come 

 under my own observation, and they answer the questions which 

 have been put to us. 



Mr. Stedman. I think that for us to adopt the practice of 

 allowing calves to run with the dam would be injurious to the 

 milking qualities of our cows. I think the milking qualities of 

 Shorthorns have been injured by the continued practice of 

 breeding for the production of beef rather than milk. If we 

 were to allow our Shorthorn calves to run with the dam, they 

 could not take all the milk which the dam is ready to give, and 

 the tendency would be to dry up the cow to a certain extent, 

 and she would go dry early. This would be injurious to our 

 interests. I do not believe we can afford it. But it seems to 

 me that we may adopt the practice, to some extent, in our breed- 

 ing of animals, of letting them obtain milk in the natural way 

 in some form. I think the practice of our Shorthorn breeders 



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