140 \ STIMULATING THE APPETITE. 



in May into a rich pasture, housing them at night: and 

 giving them a mess of the steamed mixture and some 

 hay morning and night; and from June to October they 

 have cut grass in the stall, besides what they get in the 

 pasture, and two feeds of the steamed mixture a day. 

 After the beginning of October the cows are kept 

 housed. With such management, his cows generally 

 yield from twelve to sixteen quarts of milk (wine 

 measure) a day, for about eight months after calving, 

 when they fall off in milk, but gain in flesh, up to calv- 

 ing-time. In this course of treatment the manure is 

 far better than the average, and his pastures are con- 

 stantly improved. The average amount of butter from 

 every sixteen quarts of milk is twenty-five ounces, a 

 proportion far larger than the average. His investi- 

 gations are very full and complete. See Appendix. 



How widely does this course of practice differ from 

 that of most farmers ! The object with many seems 

 to be to see with how little food they can keep the 

 cow alive. Now, it appears to me that the milch cow 

 should be regarded as an instrument of transformation. 

 With so much hay, so much grain, so many roots, how 

 can the most milk, or butter, or cheese, be made ? The 

 conduct of a manufacturer who owned good machinery, 

 and an abundance of raw material, and had the labor at 

 hand, would be considered as very absurd, if he hesi- 

 tated to supply the material, and keep the machinery at 

 work at least so long as he could run it with profit. 



Stimulate the appetite, then, and induce the cow to 

 eat, by a frequent change of diet, not merely enough to 

 supply the constant waste of her system, but enough 

 and to spare, of a food adapted to the production of 

 milk of the quality desired. 



SOILING. Of the advantages of soiling milch cows, 

 or feeding exclusively in the barn, there are still many 



