7(; BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc 



from some of the States whose publications I thought would 

 help me. Now, in this bulletin Professor Wing and Mr. 

 Foord tell of ' An attempt to increase the fat in milk by 

 means of liberal feeding,' which is somewhat in the line om* 

 conversation has fallen into. They planned an experiment 

 to find out whether a herd of dairy cows, previously kept 

 under adverse conditions, could be made more profitable by 

 better feeding and care. So they went out into the country 

 near the station, and found a herd of 21 cows, with a repu- 

 tation of being poorly fed, that had been on the same farm 

 for some time, that had a large proportion of comparatively 

 young animals, most of wdiich had calved as nearly as pos- 

 sible at the same time. In this herd only 4 of the cows were 

 more than eight years old ; all but one had calved within a 

 period of two consecutive months ; and all were thin in flesh, 

 much as yours are. Like yours, they represented native 

 and mixed breeding. 



" The experhnent then begun by the station ran somewhat 

 like this : A record was kept of the production of the herd 

 in milk and fat for one entire milking period on the farm 

 of the ow^ier, without in any way changing the conditions 

 under which the animals had lived. The man who owned 

 the cows, Mr. Gibson, fed and cared for them just as he had 

 always. The station arranged for him to weigh the daily 

 milk yield, and take frequent samples of the milk of each 

 cow, which were once a week tested for their butter fat com- 

 position by a representative of the station. After the first 

 milking period was over, 10 of the cows w^ere bought by the 

 station and taken on its farm, where they were cared for and 

 fed liberal 1}^ for two years. A record was kept of all the 

 food the}^ ate, and the milk they produced was weighed 

 daily, and its fat composition measured. While these cows 

 were being studied, the other cows left on the Gibson farm 

 were also being studied, just as they were the first year. 



"On the fourth period of milking the 10 cows they bought 

 were taken back to the Gibson farm, and again su1)jected to 

 the same conditions they were under when the experiment 

 began. During the second milking period at the station 

 they fed the cows all the easily digested food the\' would 



