72 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



of the milk your cows give night and morning, and make at 

 least six or seven tests annually from each cow ; select those 

 that bring in the most money, breed from those that are the 

 most profitable, and build up your herd in that way. 



Mr. Burt. Mr. Parker feeds ensilage in summer. We 

 can raise all the feed we want green, and it seems to me it is 

 expensive to put it in the silo. 



Mr. L. C. Dresser (of Gardner). I have kept cattle for 

 the last seven years and made milk for the market, and 

 while perhaps I have not learned very much, what I have 

 learned has been of value to me in the last few years. We 

 have a large silo, and a year ago we raised a large crop of 

 corn, more than we could get into the silo. I cut it and fed 

 it out until about the middle of January, then I began to 

 feed the ensilage. I fed the last the second day of Septem- 

 ber last, and I do not think I threw away half a cart load 

 of ensilage. So far as feeding it green, it would be a great 

 expense to me to do so ; it would take a great deal of help 

 to handle it every day. 



In regard to raising calves, I have to manufacture between 

 seven and eight hundred quarts of milk every day in the 

 three hundred and sixty-five. If I undertook to raise all 

 the calves, or all those I would like to, I would have so big 

 a herd on the farm that I would not know how to handle it. 

 I raise from twelve to twenty every year, from some of the 

 best cows I have. As a rule, they are very much more 

 satisfactory than those I buy. I bought some cattle in 

 Brighton, and I got one of the best cows I ever had ; others 

 were not as good. With some we have taken a great deal 

 of pains, and bought the male of Mr. Hood and paid a good 

 big price, and raised heifers from the best cows I have, and 

 the results have not been satisfactory. On the other hand, 

 I got some cheaper animals by trading a horse for them, and 

 among the rest was a yearling male. We raised a heifer 

 from them, and we are milking her to-day. She is one of 

 the best heifers we have raised. 



I have one cow that stands at the farther end of the row, 

 and every one who comes in says she is an old, homely cow. 

 She has very long, large horns. That cow has been there 

 for two years, and she has not been dry but two weeks in 



