174 FARM ANIMALS 



have had better success in watering cows only at 

 regular intervals during the day. In some direct 

 tests of this matter cows that were driven into the 

 yard for watering gave as large an amount of milk 

 and kept themselves in as good condition as those 

 which had constant access to water. In summer 

 cows prefer cold water and in winter they like to 

 have the chill taken from it. Whenever oppor- 

 tunity is given cows to choose between extremely 

 cold and cool water in winter, they always prefer 

 that from which the chill has been taken. It is not 

 desirable however, to heat the water too much. 



Bedding should always be furnished in a clean 

 and comfortable form. In fact this matter appears 

 to be far more important, according to recent 

 experiments, than has usually been supposed 

 Not only is a sufficient amount of clean bedding 

 necessary for the comfort of the cow and therefore 

 for the greatest production of milk but the bedding 

 serves incidentally to absorb the liquid parts of the 

 manure and thus make a great saving in its fertilizer 

 value. The materials which may be used for bedding 

 vary greatly. Thus farmers may utilize for this 

 purpose spoiled hay, straw, corn stalks, chaff, saw- 

 dust and shavings. In general, however, any 

 material which contains dust or which easily gives 

 rise to dust by the trampling of the cows is ob- 

 jectionable. For this reason chaff, moldy or 

 musty hay or straw are undesirable as compared 

 with other materials such as corn, rye or wheat 

 straw, sawdust and shavings. In the matter of 

 cost shavings are ten times as expensive as saw- 

 dust, being about on a par with cut or uncut wheat 

 straw and cut corn fodder. Recent experiments 

 carried out at the Maryland Experiment Station 

 show that the yearly cost for stabling cows 24 



