THE FEEDING OF DAIRY COWS 175 



to an exact science, but we can at once say that the 

 cheapest, best, most reliable and economical feed 

 can be summed up in five letters, viz. grass ; it is 

 therefore wise to pay attention to one's grass veld by 

 dividing large camps into smaller paddocks, to top 

 dress with bone dust, lime, farmyard manure or 

 kraal manure as the case may be, to improve the land 

 in order to produce more and better grass. By 

 having a series of paddocks, dairy cows may be 

 most economically fed during summer (winter in the 

 Cape), and provision in the form of " roughage " 

 duly made to supply the bulk of food needed in the 

 dry season. 



Maize ensilage is the next in line for economical 

 feeding, but when highly bred milking stock are 

 being handled they will have to have some form of 

 grain ration in order to supply more nutrients and 

 variety. 



In composing a ration for your cows never for a 

 moment forget variety. A ration, to produce good 

 results, should as far as possible be composed of a 

 reasonable number of feed stuffs, since any cow does 

 better on mixture of feeds than when fed only on 

 one kind of grain or roughage ; at the same time 

 frequent changes in a ration should be avoided, as 

 this causes imperfect digestion and assimilation. 



Always grow as much of your feed as possible 

 on your own farm, and we may say here that the 

 average farmer in South Africa need never buy one 



