MANUFACTURE OF MILK. 81 



The old French proverb, " No cattle, no farming ; few cattle, 

 poor farming ; many cattle, good farming," applies here. Wo 

 need to increase the number of our cows, and find out how we 

 can best produce milk to a profit, in order that farmers may 

 derive the largest profit from their farms. 



We want not only to increase our cows, but to learn how to 

 feed them in their youth and maturity. That is a very im- 

 portant part of the whole business. Mr. Flint has shown you, 

 with a great deal of skill and a great deal of exactness, what a 

 delicate and intricate process the manufacture of milk is. I 

 was very glad to hear it put in so elaborate a form, because I 

 have so often alluded to it that I have thought sometimes my 

 agricultural friends might think it was a hobby of mine, and 

 that it was just as easy for a cow to make milk as for a steer to 

 take on fat ; but it is not. The business of making beef is an 

 easy thing. It arises from the inheritance of physical qualities 

 which are crude and rough when compared with this delicate 

 mechanism which the cow has for making milk. So, from the 

 beginning of calfhood, you must be careful how you feed the 

 animal, or before she has half arrived at the condition of giving 

 milk she may be utterly ruined. 



Now, then, what would you do with a calf that you intended 

 to rear as a heifer ? If you have got a Shorthorn calf you 

 would keep it on the cow ; let it have all the milk that a Short- 

 horn cow would give; that won't hurt any calf! Keep it 

 round ; keep it fat ; keep it looking well. I am talking now 

 about the modern improved Shorthorn, meant for beef. The 

 old-fashioned Durham stock I have a good deal of respect for. 

 They were good square-hipped profitable old cows. But keep 

 the modern Shorthorn growing. If his leg is a little large below 

 the knee, it does him no harm. If his carcase is overloaded 

 with fat, it is all the better ; he takes the more premiums. If 

 he looks rugged and strong, it is what you want. He is made 

 for beef; he is a beef calf, and the larger he is the better. You 

 may give him oil-cake before he leaves his mother, and after he 

 leaves her you may put him into a clover field up to his eyes, 

 and keep him growing, and your object is accomplished. 



But if you have a heifer calf to rear, and you keep her with 

 her mother until she is three months old, you will find that you 

 have developed every conceivable quality opposed to the produc- 

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