FEEDING FOR BUTTER. 63 



yon must select their food with a great deal of care, even 

 away down to water. It is only by this care that you can 

 have first-class milk or first-class butter, in my view of the 

 matter, from this kind of c;ittle, while perhaps you might, 

 with otlier breeds, feed poorer materials without producing 

 any unfavorable results. 



Mr. E. P. Smith of Amherst. I have fed cotton seed 

 this summer to twenty-five or thirty cows, from one to four 

 quarts a day, and have not seen any injurious effect from it. 

 I had one cow that I kept in the barn, and fed her cured 

 corn fodder and two quarts of cotton seed, and I never had 

 a cow do liettcr. 



Dr. Wakefield. My last experience in feeding has been 

 with a herd of Ayrshires. When I Avas connected with the 

 State institution at Monson, I had a herd of Ayrshire cattle, 

 and as we reqnired as much milk iu that institution in the 

 winter as we did in the summer, I tried to make a feed that 

 would come just as near grass as I could, and I did it in this 

 , way : by a combination of early-cut hay and roots, giving them 

 from a peck to a half of a bushel a day of carrots and beets, 

 from the time they went into the barn in November until 

 they went out in May to the pasture ; and, coml)ined with 

 that, I fed a very little Indian meal, and occasionally cotton- 

 seed meal, and always shorts, By this feed I was able to 

 make nearly as much milk in winter as in summer. I think 

 that this combination of early-cut hay, shorts, a very little 

 cotton-seed meal, and these roots, to the amount that I have 

 stated, gave me a food that was nearer the grass, which is 

 the great desideratum that everybody needs for the i)roduc- 

 tion of milk or the production of fat. I do notl)elieve there 

 is anything better for milk or butter, or to lay on flesh, than 

 good early gras-^, that the cows can crop from day to day. 

 In regard to the difference in breeds, I have had a great deal 

 of experience WMth Ayrshires and Jerseys, and I have never 

 been able to see any dirtcrcnce l)etween those two breeds. 



Mr. E. L. BuELL of Ludlow. I hope that those who are 

 not experienced in butter-making will not go home and com- 

 mence feeding the poorest feed to milch cows — musty hay, 

 cotton-seed meal, and shorts — because some gentlemen 

 here, Mr. Cheever and others, have said that they have sue- 



