BREEDING AND TREATMENT OF DAIRY CATTLE. 45 



almost anything, so long as they could fill their poor starved 

 bellies. A bellyful was a bellyful, were it only straw or fusty 

 hay. People did not seem to consider that even if cows were 

 giving no milk of consequence, the calf in the womb was making 

 a constantly increasing demand on the system of the cow, and 

 the season of the year demanded, too commonly in vain, a 

 greater supply of heat-giving food to maintain the temperature 

 of the animal. Indeed, not only was such food denied, but 

 the shelter and warmth and comfort, which are to some extent 

 its equivalent, were denied as well. Cows were kept out of 

 doors far too long, pining under the lees of the fences, their 

 wet skins causing valuable heat to evaporate from the system. 

 The patient ass was often talked about, but the patient cow 

 might well have been quite as often a theme for sympathetic 

 conversation. 



" I have often expressed myself in disapproval of the custom, 

 still too much honoured in the observance, of keeping in-calf 

 cows out on the pastures in the bleak days and chilly nights of 

 October and November, and even of December in many cases. 

 Apart from the cruelty of the practice, there is no real economy 

 in it. That a storm of frost and snow should be regarded as 

 a necessary signal that cattle should be housed, I have never 

 yet been inclined to admit. Indeed, the housing of cattle in 

 good time in the fall, is mere elementary wisdom and kindnesb 

 in the treatment of animals so ill provided as cows are by 

 natural covering to withstand the cruel blasts of a northern 

 climate. If they lie warm and dry o' nights the benefit is con- 

 siderable, even if they receive but little food "in-doors." 

 Shelter and comfort, which of course mean warmth, stand in 

 the place of so much food, because a large portion of what 

 all animals eat is used to maintain bodily temperature. If 

 farmers would always bear this in mind, they would see that 

 no economy is to be found in keeping cattle out too long 

 in early winter. 



" But shelter in good time is not all I have advocated, and 

 still do advocate. I plead for better food, and more of it in 

 early winter, in the dead time of the year, when Nature herself 



