150 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Jan. 



Secretary Sessions. As I understood him, the quality 

 of the milk remained the same, but the quantity could be 

 changed by the feed. 



Mr. Gold. I think that in the discussion referred to the 

 scientists and naturalists somewhat qualified the statement 

 that struck the audience as so contrary to their ideas, with 

 this supplementary statement, that you could not improve 

 the quality of the cow's milk by changing the ration, if you 

 had a normal ration to begin with ; and when the conditions 

 were normal you could not improve the quality of the milk 

 by feeding a still higher ration. They rather took shelter 

 behind that proposition, which they had not announced to 

 the audience to begin with at all, and the farmers rose up 

 by the dozen when such a statement was made in its bald 

 form. That appears to be about the proposition that they 

 hold to now. We are trying to test this question at the 

 experiment station of the Storrs Agricultural School. We 

 have some cows there, and we have been feeding them 

 several months to ascertain what those cows can do in their 

 normal condition, — how much they will vary when their 

 feed does not vary. We are not ready yet to put them on 

 the test of good feed and poor feed, because we find the 

 cows themselves vary more than we expected they would 

 when we started them on our course of experiment. 



Governor Hoard. They will always vary, and the fat 

 will vary. 



Professor Roberts. I want to ask the gentlemen what 

 we are going to do with that word " normal." That is just 

 like "a big lump of chalk." These men say "a normal 

 ration." What is " a normal ration?" 



Mr. Gold. I do not say that they used that expression 

 exactly, but they used words that in substance implied that 

 idea. AVe hope to test the relative value of wheat bran, 

 buckwheat bran, turnips, Indian meal, linseed meal and 

 cotton-seed meal in their effect upon these cows. We have 

 been trying to get them in a course of training, but there 

 are a number of difficulties that have come up. They get 

 out of the course of training about as soon as we get them 

 in it. You see that, in order to make the experiments of 

 value, there must be about the same length of time from the 



