zg4 Journal of Agriculture. [8 Oct., 1907. 



can be at once manured with the farm-xarcl manure, and reploughed and 

 sown with maize or Japanese millet, which would be ready to pit aliout 

 l-ebruarv, thus returning two crops off the same land. 



Importance of Good Cows. 

 It has been prowal without a doubt that it is a fallacv to expect a 

 common-bred cow, e\en if she is continuously scuffed with plenty of 

 nutritious food, to produce as much milk of a rich and profitable quality 

 as a cow bred from a milking strain. Hence the necessity of breeding 

 from a sire descended from a strain of both quality and quantity. A cow's 

 biography is expressed, not in good deeds, but in quarts of milk. Dairy- 

 ing can only be expected to pay where conducted on right lines. Like 

 otner pursuits, there are many wrong ways, but only one right wa\-. The 

 foundation of the whole business is in possessing good cows. This can 

 only be brought about by a systematic method of testing the whole herd 

 of cows, and when the dairyman realizes this there will be some startling 

 revelations, and ideal cows in the owners' estimation will go down hope- 

 lessly before the stern logic of practical test. Testing cows individually, 

 and treating them on the merits of that test only, is the only sure and 

 profitable way of increasing the output, and consequently the banking 

 account of the dairyman. It is very often found that a cow which is an 

 inferior producer is a large consumer of food. Say, for instance, 

 the supposed best coavs are large producers of a poor quality of milk, and 

 e\'en if this were not the absolute truth it often is, would it not be far more 

 profitable to obtain the same quantity of butter or cheese from a less 

 number of cows? So plain, simple and inexpensive a thing as testing the 

 cows has no difficulties, except the obstinacy of the dairyman himself, and 

 in the near future the regular system of testing every cow in- the herd must 

 inevitably be a part and parcel of the operations of the successful dairy 

 man. What steps have been taken by the general run of dairymen in 

 the past to secure this end ? In the majority of cases that have come 

 under my notice, none whate\er. They seem to be content with any 

 mongrel of a sire ; their chief aim seems to be in getting their cows in 

 calf, forgetting the plain and solid fact that for the dairy cows of the near 

 future they will have to depend on the butter-producing qualities of the 

 calves that are reared by themselves. 



In the future breeding and feeding, coupled with shelter (whicu '' 

 sadly neglected on the majority of dairy farms inspected by me), will be 

 the dairymen's stand-by, for without green succulent food the cows can give 

 neither quantity nor quality of milk. My experience has been that 

 the production of butter from a cow is in nine cases out of ten de- 

 jiendent on her breed, for there seems to be a structural limit to the 

 richness of cow's milk, and if a cow is fed to this limit no feed seems to 

 increase the butter yield. The character of the food no doubt has a good 

 deal to do with the quality of the butter produced, but even here it would 

 appear that the breed has a still greater influence on the quality of the 

 butter; therefore, it becomes obvious that the future of our dairying 

 methods depends a great deal upon breeding, feeding, and shelter, and 

 if the dairvmen would insist on buying only pure-bred sires descended from 

 a milking strain, and securing heifer calves selected from good butter-tested 

 cows, the milk of the latter, when thev came in, would be rich in butter 

 fat. In conclusion. I sav it is not possible to make dairying nav without 

 providing abundance of green succulent food for the dairy herd throughout 

 the year, a wholesome water supply, and plenty of shelter. 



