No. 7. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 273 



four pounds^ some five pounds and a few still higher. Any good, 

 healthy food given in proper quantity will bring the cow up to this 

 normal quality of milk and after that no change of food can change 

 quality, either to make it richer or poorer. During a long series of 

 years I tried a great variety of feeding stuffs on cows to see if I 

 could find one that would induce the cow to produce richer milk. 

 Only once did I succeed. When "cream gluten meal" first came 

 on the market, it was claimed by the makers to increase the per cent, 

 of fat in the milk. I bought half a carload for experimental pur- 

 poses^ fed it to a herd of cows and noted the results with great care. 

 The milk began at once to increase in quantity and improve in quality. 

 When the experiment had lasted a week, I calculated that if it would 

 do every time what it had done so far we could afford to pay eighty 

 dollars a ton for it. Then one morning one of the best cows was 

 found dead, and examination showed the others to be in a state of 

 high fever. The dead cow's liver was found to be enormously en- 

 larged. This explained the trouble. The liver is the part of the body 

 that deals with fat in the food. The cream gluten meal was very 

 rich in fat and the four pounds per day per head contained more fat 

 than the liver could handle. An extra amount of fat had been 

 thrown into the milk in the endeavor of the system to rid itself of 

 the surplus. But it was at the expense of health and the other cows 

 would have soon succumbed had the feeding continued. 



As already stated, this is the only time I have been able to trace 

 any relation between the feed and the richness of the milk* though 

 I have tried most of the feeds on the market in a great variety of 

 combinations. 



There are several changes in feed that are popularly supposed to 

 influence the richness of the milk. Many believe that if a cow is fed 

 heavily with salt so that she drinks an abnormally large amount of 

 water, the result will be an increased flow of a poorer quality of milk. 

 There is no such effect produced. Most dairymen believe that when 

 the cows are fed any wet food in large quantity, as for example, 

 silage, roots or wet brewers' grains a similar result will follow. 

 Their belief is incorrect and arose probably in large measure from 

 the influence of such foods on the color and the consistency of the 

 cream as already mentioned. The belief is prevalent that when cows 

 are turned to pasture in the spring, the change from dry feed to 

 wet induces a larger flow of poorer milk. Indeed this idea is so 

 grounded in dairy thought, that it is incorporated in the laws of 

 some states that allow a poorer quality of milk to be sold during 

 May and June than during the rest of the year. I have tested this 

 matter both with my own herd and with some three hundred cows 

 belonging to several different farms and representing widely varying 

 environment, feed and oare. In some cases the milk improved slightly 

 18—7—1904 



