160 THE FARM. 



fed, if properly prepared. With a fodder cutter that not only cnk but 

 crushes, com fodder can be made as palatable as clover hay, and wheat 

 straw, when cut into short lengths and mixed with hay, answers excellently 

 when grain is fed with it. Cows will always eat chaff if it is mixed with cut 

 food. If all such feeding material as corn fodder and wheat straw is cut up 

 fine, and well moistened, salted, and mixed with bran, shorts and meal, 

 with a pound of linseed or cotton-seed meal additional, a mess will thus bo 

 prepared that is not only nourishing and healthy, but superior to hay alone. 

 It is not intended here to recommend straw in the place of better food, but 

 we claim that if a saving can be effected by feeding straw in connection vrith 

 concentrated food, there will be a saving, not only of the hay in the loft by 

 reason of the substitution, but also of much that annually goes to waste. 



How wasteful it is to throw fodder and straw over the fence into the farm- 

 yard to be picked over and trampled in the dirt without being consumed. 

 Every pound of fodder and straw is valuable and can be put to useful service, 

 whicia is very important when the winter's supply of hay seems unhkely to 

 last, and when the cold season is unusually long. Nor is it proper to allow 

 fodder to remain all the year stacked in the fields, for it is almost every time 

 that the winds blow it down, whore it remains until fed, but it is not then in 

 . as proper condition as if well cured and placed under cover. As to using 

 straw for bedding, this, also, is wastefully done, as if it possessed no value; 

 and if chaff is not ijreferred for feeding, let it be used as an absorbent in the 

 stables, for which puipose nothing is superior to it. A crop of turnips, or 

 what may be better, beets, parsnips, and carrots, should be grown for stock, 

 not only for their value for feeding purposes, in proportion to their cost, but 

 also because they afford a succulent diet in winter when every other kind of 

 food is dry, and at times not relished. 



How Good Cows are Ruined — Milking is an art, and the farm hand 

 who knows how to milk properly is more valuable to the careful dairyman 

 than any other help. Of course, anybody can milk, and some can milk a 

 dozen cows before breakfast. The careful manager, however, is not so anx- 

 ious for fast help as he is to employ those who are careful. The operation 

 should never be hurried, but the milk should be drawn steadily, and, as it 

 flows, naturally. Some cows have very tender teats, and the rapid milkman 

 forgets this fact in his endeavor to make speed. The cow that is naturally im- 

 patient and fretful does not like to submit to rough handhng, and her disposi- 

 tion is soon ruined by such treatment. With the constant irritation she will 

 fail in quantity, and be less productive, just as any human being would fail to 

 perform faithful service when laboring under mental affliction or ti'ouble. 

 As the udder becomes distended and filled with milk, the desire on the part 

 of the cow is to bo relieved of its contents, and she willingly submits to it 

 for the relief it occasions. The constant practice of being milked at stated 

 intervals impresses itself strongly upon her, and slio will seldom offer resist- 

 ance without cause. When a cow, therefore, that has been a patient deliverer 

 of mUk becomes fractious, the fault can always be traced to the milkman. 

 The careless dairyman is the one who complains of the failure of his cows \o^ 

 keep up the flow, and bloody milk, garget and other evils are the results of 

 his own bad management. There is another point in the treatment of cow« 

 that demands attention, and that is allowing them to stand a long time wait^ 

 ing to be milked. With cows that give largo yield it is very painful, and 

 when the udders have been filled to their utmost, and the milkman is not ou 

 hand to relievo them, thoy become exceedingly nervous and rcetlosa. Thia 



