40 



DOirESTIC ANIMALS. 



[Chap. I. 



39. Wintering Cows. — Tlic method of feeding cows in winter is not so im- 

 portant as it is to make tlie cliange from grass to hay and from hay to grass 

 without producing any deterioration in their condition. It is highly import- 

 ant, if your cows are giving milk upon autumn pasture, that you do ncit 

 allow them to fall off iu milk or flesh for want of a little extra feed. I have 

 never found anything quite ecpial to corn-meal for cow-feed, particularly 

 when you are making butter. It may not be necessary nor economical to 

 feed cows meal in autumn, even if pasture docs fail, if you have green corn- 

 stalks, pumpkins, turnips, cabbage, etc., which must be consumed, because 

 not good to keep through winter. But in spring, when cows are lirst turned 

 to grass, they are very apt to fall away, and then it will be found to be good 

 economy to feed meal evcrj' night in the yard, and so it will before the cows 

 are turned out, if not in first-rate condition. 



I sec the calculation of one writer that corn-meal, thus fed, was worth §3 

 a bushel, fed at the rate of one quart a day to a cow, for twenty or thirty 

 days. He says : 



" I have also found, by other experiments, that there is a great difference 

 in the manner of getting animals to grass. When turned out early, with 

 little or no other feed, they fall away greatly ; on the contrarj', if fed all the 

 good hay they will eat, night and morning, with a judicious feeding of meal 

 of some kind (and I prefer mixed feed — that is, mixing the different grains 

 together before they are ground — to any one variety), they will soon begin 

 to gain finely by such a course, and carry their extra weights through tlie 

 season. In an experiment now being conducted, I have a cow that has, since 

 the first of December last, been quietly laying on her two pounds per dav 

 (or nearly so), and her feed has been only moderate, as I am no advocate for 

 forcing, but simply good fViir keeping and care ; then, M-itli good aliimals, we 

 are sure of a fair remuneration for care and feeding. 



" I woidd that what I have already written could reach the eye of every 

 farmer in these United States, and that each one would set liimsclf about 

 making at least one experiment in the care of farm-stock." 



40. Cows Badiy Wintered arc Unprofltable. — A farmer can not afford to 

 winter any stock poorly, and least of all, milch cows, or those which are to 

 produce calves in the spring. Look at the following statement, and see if the 

 Western Reserve farmers can afford thus to winter cows. 



A letter from Warren, Trumbull County, Ohio, written in April, 1S60, 

 says : "Tl)c present times are the worst we liave ever known in this country. 

 Cows and cattle arc dying by the hundred ; six hundred head have died 

 within the three adjoining counties this winter for want of food. The 

 weather is still dry and cold." 



This is oidy one, among many illustrations, of the folly and wrong com- 

 mitted by Western farmers in keeping more stock than can be housed and 

 fed. This is the case all through the Western country. Travel over any 

 portion of it, and you will see scores of cattle shivering in the cold storms 

 of winter, without shelter, and so poorly fed that if they live through the 



