WINTER FEED OF COWS. 83 



green corn, the meanest and cheapest of all things that a farmer 

 ever raised to feed to a cow ; but the farmer who is making 

 milk, and undertaking to bring up his cows upon anything but 

 pasture, is constantly working up hill. 



Now in winter we want something as near pasture grass as 

 we can find. Early cut hay, or rowen hay, with a supply of 

 mangel-wurzel if she is giving milk, or Swedish turnips if 

 she is dry, to keep her in good condition. It is an economical 

 way to feed. If you must give her any grain, give her shorts, 

 or even a little oat-meal, but do not resort to corn-meal, or cot- 

 ton-seed meal, or oil-cake, for dairy cows. There has been a 

 little controversy about this matter. But I have learned from 

 experience that the feeding of oleaginous matters to dairy cows 

 is injurious to them. Four or five years ago I undertook to 

 feed forty or fifty cows that were in milk, in the winter season, 

 upon two quarts of cotton-seed meal a day and two quarts of 

 shorts. They had what hay they wanted, and about a peck and 

 a half of mangel-wurzel. I thought it was good food for them. 

 Three years of that kind of feeding destroyed thirty of those 

 fifty cows. 



Question. What kind were they ? 



Dr. LoRiNG. Good cows. 



Question. I mean what breed ? 



Dr. LoRiNG. They were -Ayrshires. You cannot use an 

 Ayrshire up easily. They will stand pretty much anything. 

 Their udders are made, you know, for work, and they are not 

 to be broken down by a trifle. But I found the udders of those 

 cows had all got out of condition. One teat would go, then 

 another, and at last I had cows with two teats, cows with one 

 teat, and the value of my herd was gone. I could not do much 

 with them. They lost their appetites, and it was evident 

 enough that those animals had been fed upon something that 

 did not agree with them, and that their lacteal system had been 

 ruined. This little delicate organism had been inflamed, was 

 broken up, and was good for nothing. I supposed it was the 

 cotton-seed meal. I took it for granted it was, and said so. I 

 was told that I was mistaken. Three years ago I purchased in 

 the autumn six cows from Vermont, and put them on cotton- 

 seed meal for a purpose. The cows had calved in the autumn. 

 They were put into the barn, intended to be run for milk until 



