BREEDING AND FEEDING DAIRY CATTLE. 



MR. F. E. DUFFY, "WEST HARTFORD, CONN. 



May the day soon come when no man who does not love 

 the dairy cow shall feed or breed her. I use the word " love " 

 advisedly. The good breeder to my mind is the one who 

 joys to minister to her wants, delights in her presence 

 during his waking hours, goes to his rest to dream of a more 

 perfect dairy type of his breed yet to be, and if he is a pray- 

 ing man, the prayer of his heart will be that the dairy cow 

 which he breeds may more nearly approximate perfection. 



I say that every breeder of dairy cattle should love his 

 particular breed and should recognize it as his life work to 

 perfect the type or ideal of that breed. May his love be as 

 great and his discretion greater than that of an old Scotch- 

 man whom I once knew, who was never profane unless the 

 transcendent qualities of his well-loved "Ayrshire coos" 

 were called in question. He declared that when a man in 

 Scotland rented land, if he was wise in agriculture he would 

 buy a "bunch" of "Ayrshire coos," and if he breeds them 

 "well for a ten year" he could pay for his farm; and if 

 he keeps the increase " well for five year more " he could buy 

 his neiffhbor's farm; and if he learned his business and 

 " tended his coos well until he was fifty year old " he could 

 buy every farm that joined him. 



How much of this description was born of the Scotchman's 

 enthusiasm I must leave you to judge. But this I know, that 

 on a beautiful May day in the 90's I was present at a sale 

 of his dairy cattle, and the best breeders of Ayrshires in the 

 country had traveled many a weary mile to this farm in 

 the back country at Hemmingford, Quebec. The farm was 

 six miles from a railroad, and yet this herd was sold to these 



