150 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



farmers who, after stinting their animals for the first two 

 years, if they then feed them so that they are in tolerable 

 good flesh when they come into milk, at three years, they 

 feel that they have produced them at the least possible cost, 

 and yet they feel that it has not been a paying operation. 



But now, suppose we were to try this over again, beginning, 

 as it were, at the other end, — that is, feed them well on the 

 start, and if we are to stint them at all, do it after they are 

 two years old. 



The younger the animal, the more care and attention it 

 requires, and the more care and attention it gets, the faster it 

 develops and matures. Not unfrequently, when noting an 

 animal reared under these conditions, we hear the remark 

 that "this yearling is large enough for a two-year-old," — a 

 statement which would be literally true, if the "two-year-old" 

 were raised by the first-mentioned plan ; and let us not forget 

 just here, that if the cost of the first year is a little more, we 

 produce the cow in two years, and make a saving of what a 

 two-year-old animal would consume during one year ; and 

 what is still better^ we have the satisfaction of feeling that it 

 has been a paying operation. 



Thomas S. Eaton, Chairman. 



HAMPSHIRE, FRANKLIN, AND HAMPDEN. 



Statement of Henry Shepherd. 



The cow I offer for premium is high grade Devon, eight 

 years old. I have owned her about a year, and she is the best 

 of many cows I have owned. She calved last December ; her 

 calf, at six weeks old, weighed two hundred and forty pounds. 



This cow was fed upon rowen hay the first five months, consum- 

 ing, by actual weight, 225 pounds per week, or more than ~2\ 



tons, at $20 per ton, $50 00 



And 20 bushels roots, potatoes, carrots, beets, etc., . . . 5 00 

 And has consumed about the same value in rowen hay, grass, 

 cornstalks, apples, pumpkins, waste vegetables from the house, 

 in the last five months, say 55 00 



$110 00 



