172 How THE FARM PAYS. 



too fast. A little care in these respects will ensure healthy calves. 

 After a month, a little oatmeal and linseed meal may be given once 

 a day, not more than an ounce to begin with, if it is not given with 

 the milk; and some fine hay may also be supplied, of which the calf 

 will soon begin to eat. The feed is carefully increased by degrees 

 up to six or eight months. At this age some Jersey calves will breed 

 and the sexes should be separated to prevent this. When putting 

 calves to pasture, care is required to avoid gorging with wet grass, 

 or chilling after overheating, by which that common, and always 

 fatal, disease, " blackleg," may be caused. About May the yearlings 

 are turned into a grass lot or paddock near to the barns, and are 

 given a mash of bran, made into a drink, once a day. They are 

 brought into the barns at night, and tiod up and fed the same feed 

 as that given to the cows, in due proportion. They are carded and 

 brushed and treated generally the same as the cows, being handled all 

 over, so that when they come to be cows they are docile, and need no 

 training, or ' ' breaking in," as it is called. Only the cow calves are thus 

 reared. Only those bull calves are reared which are from the best milkers; 

 these are always reserved for breeding purposes. It is our aim to im- 

 prove the butter quality and quantity by this means, as certainly "like 

 will beget like," and, if not at first, it always will at some time ; and it is 

 my opinion that this is the great point in breeding, for the reason 

 that one bull will get fifty calves while a cow is producing one. I 

 paid, in 1865, for a Jersey bull not two years old, $1,000, and my 

 neighbors thought at that time I should have been put into an 

 asylum, such a price for a Jersey never having been heard of; but it 

 was the best investment I have ever made, as the produce proved to 

 be of the highest standard. 



Q. As you are thus particular in breeding, I presume you do not rear 

 every calf that is dropped, as some may turn out to be inferior. What 

 are the distinguishing points of the most promising calves? 



A. When a calf is dropped an expert can tell at a glance whether 

 it is likely to be a good cow or not. There are many points which 

 altogether go to make up the general appearance, which strikes him 

 at once. The head and neck are the most important of these; the 

 head should be thin, long and fine; the ears fine and free from coarse 

 hair; the eyes large; the face broad across the eyes; the neck is slender 

 and tapers finely to the head; the hair is fine and silky; the legs fine 

 and deer-like ; but the udder marks are perhaps the most convincing 

 along with all these. If the teats are well formed and are placed well 

 apart and the skin of the future udder is loose, fhen the calf will have 

 every promise of a good cow, and this promise rarely fails. On the 

 contrary, a coarse, rough-haired calf with little apparent udder form- 



