114 CAUSES AND EFFECTS. 



terms, he finally proposed to let them take the entire 

 charge of his cows, and agreed to furnish feed amply 

 sufficient, the Swiss assuming the whole care of feeding 

 it out, and paying a fixed price by measure for all the 

 milk. " I found myself, at once," says he, " under the 

 necessity of selling almost half my cows, because the 

 Swiss required nearly double the quantity of fodder 

 which the cows had previously had, and I was well sat- 

 isfied that all the produce I could raise on my farm 

 would be far from sufficient to feed in that way the 

 number of cows I had kept. I was in despair at find- 

 ing them using such a quantity of the best quality of 

 feed, though it was according to the strict letter of the 

 contract, especially as I knew that I had given my cows 

 rather more than the quantity of food recommended by 

 men in whom I had perfect confidence. Thus, while 

 Thaet names twenty-three pounds of hay, or its equiv- 

 alent, as food sufficient for a good-sized cow, I gave mine 

 full twenty-seven pounds. But, if the change effected 

 in the management of my cows was great, the result 

 was still more striking. The quantity of milk kept 

 increasing, and it reached the highest point when the 

 cows attained the condition of the fat kine of Pharaoh's 

 dream. The quantity of milk became double, triple, 

 and even quadruple, what it had been before ; so that, 

 if I should compare the product with that previously 

 obtained, a hundred pounds of hay produced three 

 times more milk than it had produced with my old 

 mode of feeding. Such results, of course, attracted my 

 attention to this branch of my farming. It became a 

 matter of pleasure; and my observations were followed 

 up with great care, and during several years I devoted 

 a large part of my time to it. I even went so far as to 

 procure scales for weighing the food and the animals, in 

 order to establish exact data on the most positive basis." 



