186 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



attempts to go to-day and select from the beefy Short-horn 

 cows a one-purpose cow, of dairy quality of stock. 

 Mr. Anderson. I have done it for fifty years. 

 Ex-Governor Hoard. We haven't had them for fifty 

 years, that class of Short-horns, — the heavy, beefy animal. 

 Mr. Anderson. We don't want them. That is the worst 

 kind. 



Ex-Governor Hoard. Now, we are getting to the germ 

 of this question. I am speaking of the daily temperament, 

 and it may be Short-horn, but it must be preserved. Yet 

 we import from Illinois and Kentucky the beef-bred Short- 

 horn, and destroy the dairy quality. 



Mr. Anderson. I don't doubt that ; but I wouldn't do 

 it, sir. 



Mr. Wesley B. Barton (of Dalton). I wish Governor 

 Hoard would give his experience in growing cheap protein. 

 Ex-Governor Hoard. Well, that is a wide question. 

 Mr. Barton asks me to say something about growing cheap 

 food. I discovered that alfalfa was the most valuable dairy 

 food that could be produced, and if I could produce it, I 

 would have something right to my hand. I have been at 

 work on this five years. In Wisconsin it was the univer- 

 sally accepted idea that alfalfa could not be grown. They 

 experimented with it. Professor Henry did not think it 

 practical, but I knew it could be, and I kept attempting it. 

 I devoted four acres of ground belonging to my home to 

 the experiment of setting alfalfa, and I have been setting it 

 bountifully and cheaply, and I have had a whole lot of 

 mixtures with it, and I have found every one of them to be 

 of good service to me, until to-day I have twenty-eight acres 

 of alfalfa on my farm. I will say to you that this last sum- 

 mer, with the most destructive drought ever known in the 

 west, I cut three splendid crops of alfalfa hay, and have a 

 barn full of fine alfalfa hay, and it has been the amazement 

 of all my neighbors. Now, a word as to what it is worth. 

 I went down to Professor Voorhees in New Jersey last 

 winter. He has been experimenting with alfalfa for two 

 years, with a herd of 40 cows, and he shows clearly that 11 

 pounds of alfalfa hay, cut at the right time and cured rightly, 



