54 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



for the rest of the year. When I began to run the busi- 

 ness, I wanted to keep twenty cows; and so, after reading 

 and studying other people's experiences, I decided to use 

 grain feed somewhat in the way I have indicated here. I put 

 twenty cows into the same pasture where my father kept ten. 

 After liaying the first year, I went at the bushes. It was a 

 tremendous task, — it was a mountain pasture. The next 

 year there was better feed, notwithstanding there were twenty 

 cows instead of ten. We cut the brush every year and the 

 feed increased. I think if the fiithers could see the pasture 

 to-day, they wouki say it was just as good as it was a hun- 

 dred years ago. It certainly produces more feed than it did 

 fifty years ago. The expense of cutting the brush was pretty 

 severe the first year, but the annual expense grew less and 

 less, and now we have to just clip here and there a bush. 

 The point is, in feeding a cow in the stable, if the food is 

 rich in fertilizing material, she leaves as much of the fertil- 

 izing element on the pasture as she takes from it. 



Dairy cows also furnish fertilizing material to keep all 

 parts of the farm productive, and this should be set to the 

 credit side of the business. This point might be elaborated 

 at length, and my subject would seem to justify such a 

 course, but time will not allow it. 



Care of Cows. 

 Cows should always be kept comfortable and happy. The 

 best cows have a fine-strung, nervous organization, and are 

 much more susceptible to bad influences than stolid beef 

 or work animals. All the energies of such cows may be 

 engaged in milk production ; and how foolish to allow them 

 to be in part expended in long tramps in search of food or 

 drink, in resisting cold, in warming ice water, in working 

 up an extra amount of poor or unbalanced food, in counter- 

 acting the effects of fright, abuse or discomfort of any kind. 

 The moment a good cow is uncomfortable or unhappy from 

 any cause, her product begins to diminish in quantity and 

 quality. Cows are creatures of habit, and will accustom 

 themselves to any reasonable conditions and surroundings. 

 It is folly to assert that any single plan of management is 

 in all respects the best Keep a prime cow in a state of 



