146 Thirty-Fifth Annual Report of the 



The refining influences of our present civilization have been 

 purchased at tremendous cost and the natural functions of our 

 cows, created to sustain the life of their offspring, have been so 

 abnormally developed that only the skilled dairyman can enter 

 into full partnership for largest production. Intensified breeding 

 has so magnified the functions of maternity that many a dairy cow 

 is producing yearly ten times her gross weight in milk and more 

 than one-half that weight in butter fats. Such production must 

 be at terrible cost upon nervous energies and such cows to main- 

 tain their health, bring forth a calf yearly and hold their record 

 must first of all be healthy in body, possessed of great powers for 

 digestion, hale, hearty and strong, with capacity for large quan- 

 tities of food. No man can hope to succeed today in the dairy 

 who has not a keen appreciation of the development of the dairy 

 cow and, unless he realizes that milk and cream cannot be forced 

 but must come by invitation. The functions which underlie milk 

 production are beyond the reach of the man who measures by 

 cold mathematics or persuades by the lash or milking stool. 



You cannot maintain 300 lb. conditions in tie-ups built upon 

 one hundred pound basis. The increase in possible milk and 

 cream productions calls for a constant readjustment of methods 

 and practices. First of all, the call is for more sunshine, God's 

 greatest disease destroyer, then for fresh air in greater abundance. 

 Tie-ups lighted and ventilated by windows behind the cows, the 

 air coming over manure piles, are disease breeders. This Gov- 

 ernment, out of pity for the Indians, not many years ago, built, 

 in the far west, a lot of framed houses, made comfortable with 

 stoves and into these the tribes moved, only to find very soon 

 evidences of tuberculosis, which entirely disappeared as they 

 went back to the open wigwams. 



Looking for the production of rich milk in quantity sufficient 

 to yield a profit, the health of the cow becomes of supreme im- 

 portance. Production must be sustained, for competition forces, 

 necessity hedges and ambition stimulates. The conditions of 

 business do not admit of lessening the product, hence there is 

 imperative demand for multiplying the fresh air space around 

 every cow, for providing abundance of sunlight, not on the hind 

 quarters, but the head of every animal, and the observance of 

 every step which can add to the comfort of the individual, or en- 

 hance the value of her product. Cleanliness being second only 

 to Godliness, there is demanded its observance as a help to better 

 conditions. It means sunlight and air and it means also clean 

 hands, clean garments, clean utensils, both for milking and feed- 

 ing. A little dirt in the froth of the milk is a trifle, a little sedi- 

 ment in the bottom of the pail doesn't mean much, a little filth 

 in the separator is a minor matter, but poor quality butter mean,s 



