FARMERS' INSTITUTES. 147 



stitution of the grain feeds is indispensable to success. The feeder must 

 understand the materials he is using and must combine them wisely. 

 His financial success will depend on the two factors, knowledge and 

 judgment of the desires and capacities of his cows, and knowledge of 

 feeding stuffs and their proper combinations. With a grain ration 

 wisely compounded the more he can get his cows to eat of it, in combi- 

 nation with cheap and effective coarse fodders, the greater the imme- 

 diate profit. In the second place, a close observation of the constantly 

 increasing yields of cows from year to year that are continuously well 

 fed compels the belief that there is a residuary benefit from such high 

 feeding, and that instead of the cow being "burned out," surfeited and 

 spoiled by it, she is improved and rendered capable of larger yields and 

 more economical. 



I have abundant evidence to support this point in the records of the 

 cows of the College herd. I need not refer to them here in detail. It is 

 sufficient to say in this public talk that wherever we have fed a cow up 

 to her capacity, she has increased her milk and butter yield the following 

 year and has made the increased yield with equal food economy. The 

 point is a very important one since the belief is not limited to a few 

 farmers in the State that it hardly pays to feed grain in the first place, 

 and secondly, that the continuous high feeding of the cow ruins her 

 future usefulness. I will admit that when you approach the upper limit 

 of the capacity of the cow, you must proceed with caution and must exer- 

 cise more skill than when you feed more lightly, but the profits are also 

 correspondingly greater as well, and in these days of close competition 

 the dividing line between profit and loss on the herd may be in the grain 

 bin. 



The question of 



WHAT GRAIN TO FEED 



is also a live question. The selection of the grain feed must depend 

 upon the coarse fodder already on the farm. The wise dairyman will 

 raise as much of his grain feed as he possibly can and will purchase such 

 supplementary grain feeds as he must to make his ration palatable and 

 effective. 



For this reason I suggest, for the northern part of the State at least, 

 that more peas should be profitably grown for stock feeding. If sown 

 deep, say from three to four inches deep, in sandy or loamy soils, which 

 are especially adapted to the crop, and put in early in the spring, they 

 may be cut for hay early in the season and furnish a most excellent and 

 useful forage. We sow two bushels to the acre of peas, plowed under 

 four inches deep, and a half bushel of oats drilled on the surface later, 

 for this purpose. If allowed to ripen, the peas, when ground, furnish a 

 cow feed nearly as rich in protein as oil meal, and most excellent to feed 

 with silage or timothy hay. 



Clover hay is, in my opinion, the best single coarse fodder for milk 

 cows. The animals are very fond of it and its chemical composition is 

 such that it forms theoretically almost a perfect ration alone. 



