148 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Jan. 



centage or ratio. Now, I have seen enough to convince 

 me that a cow may have gone all her life, and never 

 have been brought up to that percentage. It lay there, 

 it was born in her, she had it in store, it was latent, 

 but she had never been brought up to her percentage 

 of butter fat ; and when she is taken hold of by some feeder 

 or some breeder, and he handles her in this direction, she 

 increases her butter fat at once. He jumps at the conclusion 

 that the feed has done it, when the simple fact is that the 

 cow was doing that which she was constructed to do, but had 

 never had an opportunity of doing. 



Mr. Bowker. Right here, governor, would you say that 

 she had not increased her ratio of butter fat, but had increased 

 her percentage of solids, and therefore her percentage of 

 butter fat ? 



Governor Hoard. The question is, what is the cow's 

 percentage ? 



Mr. Bowker. Professor Roberts says we can carry a 

 cow up to sixteen per cent of solids, or drop her down to 

 thirteen per cent. 



Governor Hoard. He means if she is a sixteen per 

 cent cow. 



Mr. Bowker. By nature a sixteen per cent cow ? 



Governor Hoard. That's it. I tell you, gentlemen, you 

 will never be able to get by the personal equation in the 

 animal, — the individual law of each individual animal. 

 Every man has his personal equation, every cow has her 

 personal equation, and that is one of the reasons why we 

 have stumbled here. These experiments that we have been 

 having have not first determined what was the limit of 

 percentage in the cow. Now, this is the only theory by 

 which you can explain why it is that Princess 2d made 

 forty-six pounds and twelve ounces of butter in seven days. 

 She had a limit of butter fat percentage in her milk that had 

 never been reached. That was the case with other famous 

 cows that have produced these unusual, phenomenal 

 percentages of butter fat, like Landseer's Fancy, like Mary 

 Anne St. Lambert, and like numerous other cows. I believe 

 that is the only theory that wilt explain it. I have taken a 

 cow and gone along with her and she has given me a per- 



