THE DIFFERENT BREEDS. 119 



Question. Do you give your feed cut, or uncut, wet, or 

 dry? 



Mr. Roberts. Good English hay we feed dry and uncut. 

 If we have a poorer quality of hay, and want to work up 

 corn-fodder, we mix the two together, sometimes hay, straw, 

 and corn-fodder : and Ave feed this dry. 



Mr. . I want Mr. Roberts to give his experience 



with other breeds of cattle. I have known him when he had 

 the care of other herds of cattle ; and, if he has any thing 

 to say in regard to the perfect cow of other breeds, I want to 

 hear it. 



Mr. Roberts. I have handled nearly all the pure-breds 

 there are, — Devons, Ayrshires, Dutch, Short-horns, Jerseys, 

 and one Swiss. I handled one Dutch herd, and tried to 

 make them do well. They were in a remarkably poor con- 

 dition when I took hold of them. I wanted to see what 

 they were good for ; and our specialty was to be butter. We 

 had a cheese-factory in our vicinity ; and, after trying to make 

 butter from the first of January until about the middle of 

 May, I thought we had better give up butter-making, and 

 patronize the cheese-factory. We did so as long as the 

 cheese-factory run, until about the middle of September, or 

 first of October. Then we went to making butter again. 

 My experience was, that we could get about all the milk we 

 had a mind to from them, if we would put food where they 

 coidd get hold of it ; but we could not get much butter. 

 There are some Dutch that give rich milk, as there are some 

 cows that give rich milk in all other breeds ; but it took over 

 forty pounds of the milk of mine to make a pound of butter. 



My next experience was with a herd of grade Short-horns 

 and Canada cattle, — some sixteen grade Short-horns, and 

 six head of Canada cattle. You all probably know what 

 Canada cattle are. They were very fair Canada cows. My 

 experience during that season (the year 1871) was, that it 

 took twenty -eight pounds of milk to make a pound of butter. 

 These records, mind you, have been carried along through 

 the whole year. I have been keeping these records for 

 twenty years, wherever I have been. 



My next venture was in pure-bred Short-horns, a noted 

 herd of New England and a good herd. The average 

 number of pounds of milk required for a pound of butter 



