EXPERIENCE OP A PRACTICAL FARMER. 13 



his family, whatever his specialty may be, will see to it that 

 abundance of vegetables, fruits, small and large, milk, eggs and 

 poultry, are grown upon the farm for family use; for these pay. 

 He will see, also, that a suitable plat be carefully prepared, and 

 that the women and girls of the family be amply provided with 

 the means of stocking it with at least a few choice bedding 

 plants, annual and perennial flowers and shrubs ; for these pay. 



Does he select the dairy or the raising of milk for the market, 

 let him be sure and test the quality of milk from each cow with 

 a lactometer, and he will be surprised to find how mean some 

 of his animals are. I have recently tested the milk from each 

 of my six cows, and find that the milk of one yields only from 

 one to eight per cent, cream, different milkings varying in 

 quality, while the milk of the others yields from ten to twenty 

 per cent, cream. I had every reason to suppose the first to be 

 a decent cow. But for the trial I might have kept her for years, 

 without knowing what poor milk she gave. Such milk is hardly 

 fit to supply even the Boston market ! Test yours. I doubt 

 not many of you have just such cows. The profit in raising 

 milk depends upon the quantity of food a good cow can be made 

 to consume. A poor cow should not be kept, for she affords no 

 profit. Except in the season for pasture or soiling, hay, roots, 

 shorts and Indian meal are fed to advantage in producing milk. 

 Meal should be given sparingly to young cows, lest they be in- 

 jured by it. Old cows will bear a larger quantity. I once fed 

 ninety bushels of meal to one old cow in one year, at a large 

 profit. She gave twenty quarts per day the whole time, and 

 became very fat for beef. A young cow would have been spoiled 

 by such poor feeding. 



If the growing of roots and vegetables be his choice, he 

 should raise his own seed, unless he is sure of getting it of a 

 reliable grower. For whatever may be his cultivation, a poor 

 harvest will be the result of poor seed. The choicest specimens 

 should be carefully selected year after year, that the seed may 

 hQ thoroughbred. For the laws of selection and reversion are 

 just as applicable to the growing of vegetables as to the breed- 

 ing of animals ; and, generally speaking, the laws that govern 

 animal and vegetable life will be found to be wonderfully alike. 

 Therefore let every farmer be sure and use none but thorough- 

 bred seed, and that the centre of the top of all vegetables 



