504 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



though not propotionate to the claims of its advocates. Proper care and 

 feed and sixty days dry a year will produce development. 



The size of veins are prominent indications of a good cow. The Short- 

 Horn cow, College Moore, at Ames, Iowa, has quite large, not long and 

 slightly irregular milk veins. Not a remarkable development in this 

 direction, but of course superior to tens of thousands of the same breed. 



Briefly, I want a long bodied cow, having bright, large active eyes, 

 indicating motherly affection. She must have neat shapely head, small 

 downward curved horns, mild disposition, not a lazy indifferent look, slim 

 neck, narrow foreparts, broad hind parts, and showing a disposition to 

 carry minimum amount of flesh. I want indications of large digestive 

 capacity. Like selecting steers for feeding if there is any indication of a 

 daintiness in feeding you don't want the cow. The greatest eaters are 

 probably nearly always the cheapest producers of milk or beef. 



The profitable cow in the hands of a feeder who knows that dried up 

 corn stalks and late-cut two days dried timothy hay and plenty of bedding 

 will produce profitable returns, is a failure. The profitable cow must 

 have some friend and that friend is the profitable feeder. Early cut tame 

 or wild hay put up after a very little curing is as welcomed by the good 

 cow as a dish of fruit salad is by the hired girl. Build a silo? Yes. Some 

 one has aptly said that the motto of too many reads: "Stuff the steer 

 and starve the cow." In some cases I would change it to read, stuff the 

 cow and starve the steer, in others "starve the steer and starve the cow." 

 But if you want to be a Christian you will "stuff the steer and stuff the 

 cow," if they are worth it; it not, consign them to the sausage mill. Don't 

 feed a cow dried bread nor all pie and cake. Give her a variety. It will be 

 difficult in a few years more to find any dairymen who ever poked fun 

 at the practical experiments with balanced rations. You can't find a 

 man today who ever said, for example, that the United States Department 

 of Agriculture was wild when it called Dr. E. Lewis Sturtevant to inves- 

 tigate the merits of the first Danish Weston Milk Separator, and yet there 

 were hundreds. Do not turn cows out too early in the spring. Do not 

 allow them to eat much grass the first few days. Continue the grain 

 feeding for a week or more, after which if you have pasture in abundance, 

 stop. We must now concede that liberal pasture will produce as much 

 and as rich milk as can be produced by additional grain feeding. If you can 

 have your pasture lots divided so that you can alternate occasionally it 

 will be a marked benefit I firmly believe. The rains wash off the bad odors 

 and foreign matter which has adhered to the blades of grass as the cows 

 walk round. Have your barn warm. It ought at least to be 34 degrees 

 Farenheit, better at 44 degrees ,and very doubtful about having a tem- 

 perature of 60. Let the cows have a limited amount of exercise when the 

 weather is favorable in winter. Keep them in when the weather is 10 

 below and shut the barn doors. This is just as important as it is to shut the 

 kitchen door. You scolded your wife because she was using wood to warm 

 up other peoples' back yards and you are trying to warm up 160 acre farm 

 with ten cents worth of feeds. 



