294 MISSOURI AGRICULTURAL REPORT. 



them had been in milk a year. Another was in her fourth continuous 

 vear of lactation the latter part of March, so she had been in milk three 

 years and six months when the silo feeding began last fall. The others 

 were fresh cows. 



Now it is advisable to have the cows come in in the fall because 

 that is the time that you can take the best care of them. That is the 

 time that you can keep the flow of milk better than you can at any other 

 time of the year, and that is the time of year that milk brings the high- 

 est price. 



Now there are three reasons why you should have the cows come 

 in in the fall. Why not in the spring? Aside from the fact that you 

 are very busy and that your cows are not in their flush when dairy 

 products are at the very lowest price, you cannot keep up as much flow 

 during the summer from cows that come in in the spring as you ran 

 with cows that are fresh in the fall, on account of the flies. No matter 

 how good care you take of your cows, the worry of fighting the flies by 

 the first of August or the middle of July, you will find is so g-eat that 

 they get down to mere strippers. Another thing, you are very busy at 

 that time of year, and why the average farmer will persist in having 

 the cows come in in the spring and not in the winter when the cows 

 are eating his good feed and making no return, I cannot understand! 

 The yield of dairy products of cows that come in in the fall is always 

 increased when they arc turned on to pasture in the spring. 



By this careful treatment of cows mentioned and this method of 

 handling and feeding mentioned, an even flow of milk can be kept u\) 

 nearly all winter long, and then in the spring when the cows go ouit 

 to pasture they get the succulent grass, they will flush up a little and we 

 can maintain a good flow with us in Minnesota until about the middle 

 or fifteenth of July. I presume that Missourians can do so up only 

 until about the first of July, the time that the flics begin to come, there 

 is then a shrinkage in the flow of milk. 



FEEDING ON PASTURE. 



Mr. Do you feed grain in the summer on pasture? 



Mr. ITacckcr — Yes. I have about fifty head of dairy cattle and 

 fifteen acres of pasture. I have five acres for soiling crops and twenty 

 acres for silage, and the rest of the feed T buy. I have fifteen acres 

 for pasturage and five acres for soiling crops, any little thing I want 

 to have early in the season before my silage is ready, and twenty acres 

 for silage. I have two silos. Each one holds the product of ten acres 

 of fodder corn. 



