314 ANNUAL* REPORT OF THE Off. Dm. 



cattle. Yes, very. Are you fond of chickens? Yes, very. Well, 

 let us go to the dairy barn. We went out to the dairy barn, and I 

 commenced to instruct him along that line, and he turned around 

 and said, "I didn't know there was so much to learn about cattle." 

 "Oh," I said, "You have not learned it all yet," and as I explained 

 further, he said again, "I didn't know there was so mvch to learn 

 about cattle. I thought you just fed a cow and got her milked, and 

 that was all there is of it. He said, "It's a good deal of trouble, is 

 it not?" "Yes," I said, "there is a good deal of trouble about it;" 

 but I said, "This cow has to work here for 365 days in the year." 

 A few days afterwards he wrote a letter home to his father that he 

 wasn't feeling very well, and that he had a headache. His father 

 came on and said his son was not very strong and that he would 

 take him home. Now that boy will never make an34hing. You 

 often cry that the boys leave the farm. Well, if they are like this 

 boy, let them go; we don't want such stuff, and the quicker you get 

 rid of that sort of material the better it is for the cow and the bet- 

 ter it is for the farm, too. 



Speaking of the dairy cow from these standpoints then, you can 

 see very well what we think is necessary in their management, and 

 as I have said, one of the chief things is, to provide this food in such 

 a palatable way that it will tempt the appetite of the cow. The 

 reason I insist upon this method of preparing the food is, that you 

 will get the best results from it. 



Now let us turn for a moment to the other side, and suppose that 

 a man says, "I am going to feed the cow hay in the morning, and 

 then I will give her some bran and gluten meal." The hay drags 

 down under her feet, and he lets it remain there and then goes to 

 feeding his other foods: Can you afford that? I can't. Wouldn't 

 it pay you to put in a little bran when you feed her the dry feed? 

 You will note that she dips into it greedily; perhaps she looks around 

 this side and that side of the trough, and finds the bran is on either 

 side. Suppose you have a hundred cows and are giving each one 

 an ounce of bran. It is easy to figure out that if for each cow you 

 feed an ounce, having a hundred cows, you cannot afford to have 

 it w^asted as I think is frequently the case. Now you want to pre- 

 vent that. How shall you do it? You mix up the rations of the 

 cow, hay, ensilage and bran, and put it before her in a proper way. 

 She dips her head down and perhaps she will pitch the whole thing 

 out. Now just put a stick across so that she can't pitch it out. We 

 feed in a long trough. Ask Dr. Conard what he thinks about it. 

 As the State Veterinary, Dr. Pearson, what he thinks about it. 

 Ask any of the expert feeders of the country whether that is the 

 way to feed a cow. In a lot of cows this cow is giving fifteen quarts 

 of milk, and this one pretty near dry and that one past dry. Why, 

 gentlemen, there is no more stupid feeding than that. You must 

 have a system. I know it has been a main reason for failure in the 

 business, such work as that, because of the carelessness connected 

 with it. You can't afford to be careless. You can't afford to buy 

 bran at a cent a pound, and cotton-seed at a cent and a quarter, 

 and then allow it to go to waste, and let cows throw out 300 ounces 

 of food a day. It goes right out into the manure pile and you can't 

 afford to do it. You must so handle that food that you get returns 

 in the way of milk or butter for every fraction of it. In the handling 



