No. 4.] MILCH COWS, 41 



from it. A very practical thought for us to carry away with 

 us is that we ought to endeavor to improve our herds in the 

 lines in which Dr. Twitchell has directed, and I think an 

 illustration can be made in this way. 



You take a steam engine, or a locomotive, if you please. 

 There are some that can run thirty miles an hour, and the 

 moment you endeavor to force them to forty miles an hour 

 you are overworking them. Perhaps there is another with a 

 forty or forty-five mile capacity, and when you attempt to 

 force it to fifty or sixty miles an hour you are overworking 

 it, and it is going to give out very soon. What we should 

 aim at is to increase the capacity, so that an engine with a 

 capacity of thirty miles will run forty miles with a reason- 

 able amount of fuel. So it is in this case. We must have 

 a good machine that will take food and turn it into milk and 

 butter, and we must bear in mind this building up of dairy 

 type. 



Just one illustration from experience. I had in our sta- 

 tion barn an animal which had been in the barn two years 

 before I had anything to do with the matter. At the end of 

 two more years, without any increase of feeding beyond what 

 I called a good normal feed, she broke down. I found she was 

 used up. I had another type w^hich was not a perfect dairy 

 cow by any means, but nevertheless had a large capacity, 

 thin shoulders and a good muscular development. For the 

 last two years she has never missed a feeding. She is built 

 for the business. She has been in milk fifteen months, and 

 is to-day giving twelve quarts of milk. As soon as you look 

 at her you Avill see she is built for business. 



1 believe we are in a very critical condition relative to this 

 milk and butter question. We are having severe competi- 

 tion all about us. You have only to read the daily papers 

 of the west to see what tremendous efibrts thev are makino- 

 to improve their dairies. How are we in Massachusetts going 

 to compete with those men in the west who are working so 

 hard to attain success ? I believe we are to do it in three 

 ways : first, by improving our machine ; second, by reducing 

 our cost of production to the minimum, by studying how to 

 produce raw material at as low a cost as possible ; third, not 

 only to have good machinery and good raw material, but to 



