116 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



350 cows. The mere paper which carries the closely written 

 data weighs over 30 pounds, and the separate items of the 

 records run far into the hundreds of thousands. A careful 

 study of the condensation of this data impells me to believe 

 that, if immediate returns of milk and butter are made the 

 measures of value, rations with nutritive ratios as wide as 

 1 : 6.5 or yet wider are apt to prove economically as service- 

 able as those which more nearly approximate the German 

 standards. When one considers the continued dairy well- 

 being of the cow, the maintenance of her ability to keep 

 her flow at a maximum for a series of years, the getting a 

 heifer early in her cow life up to standard, — all of which 

 are conditions that are promoted by liberal feeding, — a 

 somewhat narrower ration than 1 :6.5 is perhaps advisable. 



When, moreover, the manurial values of purchased feeds 

 are taken into account, another handful or two more of 

 cotton-seed or distillers' grains may be advantageously used. 

 It is a local question, — a matter for each feeder to settle 

 for himself. On the whole, I like protein for myself and 

 for our cows. 



Nowadays precept m-ges alfalfa as a source of protein 

 in dairy feeding in the east, and practice is taking up the 

 proposition with some avidity. Here is another case where 

 the precept is theoretically correct. As a matter of fact, 

 however, alfalfa has not often proved to be a permanent 

 success in New England. A somewhat thorough survey of 

 that territory, made a year ago by the United States Depart- 

 ment of Agriculture and the Vermont station in co-opera- 

 tion, served to narrow New England's permanent success 

 with alfalfa to a single locality, the Champlain valley, where 

 soil conditions favor its growth. That it will never do well 

 elsewhere in New England is too bold a statement for one to 

 make ; but that the likelihood of success in the near future 

 is great can be denied with safety. This ought not, how- 

 ever, to discourage ambitious dairymen from tr^ang the 

 crop in a small way. One is apt to get a fair return, even 

 though permanent success is not met; and one learns by 

 failures as well as by successes. If the soil is well drained, 

 of limestone origin or thoroughly limed if not, fairly weed- 



