Vermont Dairymen's Association. 83 



And now the common sense reason, and after all this is the 

 scientific reason, and if we are to get the best results, we 

 ought to work both scientifically and practically, and this reason 

 is because Nature has stored up in the udder of the cow a secre- 

 tion called the colostrum, which is intended to regulate the diges- 

 tive organs of this calf and start it well on the road to a success- 

 ful life. 



Now if we leave the calf with the mother and it gets this 

 provision of Nature at proper intervals and at proper tempera- 

 ture, you have it well started when we take it in hand. That is 

 common sense. And then if it is strong and lively, you could 

 take it away at three or four days. Yes, even a woman will 

 admit that she must do that if she is to have the proper dairy 

 worker, and even women are not in the business for their healtli 

 entirely ; therefore she will take it away then. Well, how will 

 you do it ? If you are a man and in a hurry and you don't think 

 very much, you will pick that calf up and go and put it in a pen, 

 and then you will turn the mother out and she will go bellowing 

 around the barn and crying ; and if you are a kind-hearted man — 

 and I have known some who didn't like to hear it — you would 

 have an excuse to go off to some neighbor's ; but your wife and 

 children would hear it just the same. Now, I am going to tell 

 you how mother and the girls would do. Women are not very 

 smart, but they are awfully shrewd sometimes. Mother and the 

 girls would make a little pen across the corner of the box stall, 

 high enough so the calf could not nurse the mother, and yet at 

 such height that the mother might come and fondle it to her 

 heart's content ; and then they would open the door and turn her 

 out into the yard for water or with the other cattle and in just 

 a few minutes, you all know, she will come back wild-eyed and 

 terror stricken, because these progressive Americans have bred 

 terror into our cattle, terror of separation from their little ones ; 

 but if we are to be really progressive, let us breed that out, — 

 leave the door open to the box stall and when she comes in speak 

 kindly to her,, pet the little one, let her see that you are its friend, 

 and I have known them in just a day or two to go back to the 

 long row of stalls, take their place there and turn the little one 

 over to you. 



Now, you have it to take care of. What are you going to 

 do? Well, you are going tO' say "That is a fine calf and I am 

 not going to be stingy with that calf. I am going to give it just 

 all it wants because I am going to bring it up right now." Be 

 careful, be careful! What are you going to do first? You are 

 going to teach it how to drink. And do you know I once knew 

 a very nice man who belonged to the church, and wouldn't swear, 

 only under great provocation, and he told me he would rather 



