No. 4.] DAIRYING. 75 



the water to run. That is why I spent so much time on the 

 first part of the case. 



Now for the latter part. In order to obtain the best results, 

 we should raise our cows. For a certain average production, 

 I believe we can buy cows cheaper than we can raise them. 

 If we wish to get 5,000 or G,000 pounds of milk, averaging 

 314 per cent butter fat, we can buy cows cheaper than we can 

 raise them ; but if we wish larger results, the 10,000-pound 

 cows, — and that is what we ought to have, — we must know 

 what their ancestry is, we must breed them and feed them 

 and develop them. One critical time in the development of 

 our dairy cows is the feeding, after they are a year and a half 

 old, until they have passed through one year of milk. It is 

 just the time when we are fixing the habit of the cow. We 

 want this milk machinery developed and enlarged; we want 

 it to be ideal. Develop her digestive ability, see that it is 

 strong, and then develop a milk-producing function in that 

 animal, so that she will take her food and deposit it in the 

 milk pail instead of on the manure pile. You cannot do this 

 in a minute. Y"ou cannot take a cow that has been educated 

 for the first three or four years on other lines, and by any 

 means, after that, make her what she would have been if you 

 could have had her at the outset. We all understand that, but 

 not all of us practice it. 



If there is a time in the life of the individual mother when 

 she needs the best care and full feed, it is when she calves for 

 the first time. Just what that full feed is to be depends on 

 the individual cow with which you are dealing, and must be 

 worked out individually. Generally in dairy sections the 

 practice is to feed light at that time, because it is thought 

 that if the animal has full feed she will have caked udder and 

 all sorts of trouble. If we feed her properly, she will have 

 nothing of the sort. We should give the heifer at that time 

 just the ration she will need as a milk producer. There are a 

 great many combinations, and we could discuss them for a 

 long time and not get anywhere. Some cows need a wider 

 ration than others ; you must adapt the ration to the 

 individual. Why should not the animal have full feed ? She 



