106 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



It is held by some that the investigator should formulate 

 his precepts as ideals, leaving to the practitioner their 

 adaptation to his individual circumstances. It is held by 

 others that it is not beneath the dignity even of the votary 

 of pure science to accord weight to practicalities. Person- 

 ally I have always trained in the latter oamp, and so I have 

 less hesitation than others might have in trying this morn- 

 ing to reduce, as it were, to their lowest terms some of the 

 fornmlations of agricultural experimentation ; to state first 

 the precept and then its practical application, confining 

 myself for illustrations to dairy practice. 



The Century Dictionary defines a ' ' precept " to be "a 

 direction given as a rule of action ; " and it tells us that 

 practice is " performance or execution, as opposed to spec- 

 ulation or theory." Let us now cite several of these " di- 

 rections as to rules of action," and then compare therewith 

 their " performance or execution.*' 



The Dairy Cow. 



First, as to the cow. Dairy precept says : The average 

 cow yields so little milk or butter as hardly to pay for her 

 keep. Therefore, breed better, feed better, choose and cull 

 better, grade up the herd. Make 6,500 pounds of milk and 

 300 pounds of l)utter per cow an " irreducible minimum." 

 This is sound doctrine ; but what does practice say as to its 

 entire applicability? 



An editorial in a recent issue of a New England agricul- 

 tural paper says, in this connection : — 



We are out of patience at the way scientific workers approach 

 this vitally important question of the pressing need of more 

 good cows in our dairy lierds, and at the way that they leave it 

 to be understood they have given an easy solution. Dairymen 

 know as well as they do that there are poor cows in their herds, 

 . . . and they would gladly exchange them for better. The 

 stock instructions given are to clean out these " robber cows," 

 and replace them by better. Do these . . . teachers . . . 

 realize what those directions . . . actually mean when . . . 

 put into actual farm practice ? The individual doing it may 

 be helped, but there are no more good cows than before the 

 change was made. What has been gained by the sharper man 



