No. 4.] FEEDING OF DAIRY COWS. 123 



your dairying here, there are some cows near Newburyport 

 that have not paid their board bill in full for a long time. 

 An animal does not destroy what it consumes, it changes it; 

 and unless it changes it into a more valuable form, it wastes. 



Then a cow that wastes is an ill-bred cow ; that is the 

 meaning of ill-bred everywhere, — a wasting of energies 

 and opportunities of all kinds. That is the best definition I 

 have ever found of ill-breeding among cows, — as well as 

 men. I have known cows that had a faculty for making 

 men swear. If the cow becomes the medium of chano^ino- 

 corn stalks into cussedness, she is a very badly trained cow. 

 If you handle a heifer from the time she is three months old 

 by an occasional rubbing of her udder, she will stand as quiet 

 as an old cow the first time the milk pail is put under her, 

 and will return about twenty per cent more milk. That 

 only goes to show the necessity and importance of careful 

 preparation for the milking season. 



Success in keeping cows depends a great deal upon the 

 kind of feed you give them. I will use a few extravagant 

 illustrations to make what I say stick in your memories. 

 If you feed a cow on strawberries, it will not pay. There 

 are many kinds of food which a cow will eat and relish, 

 which she will not turn into milk at a projit; and therefore 

 it does not pay to give them to a cow. 



Then a great deal depends on the man who manages. The 

 man and cow are alwaj^s in partnershij). If a cow has her 

 way, she will get the largest quantity of rich feed, and give 

 the least of product in return for it. If a man of good 

 judgment has his way, he will make the cow give the largest 

 return in good milk for the least possible value in food. 

 He will be the senior partner in the partnership, and his 

 judgment should prevail. 



I have said so much by way of giving you the very edges 

 of the theory of feeding cows. Any theory that has not 

 grown out of facts is not a valuable theory ; but a theory 

 that is built and based upon ficts will enable a man who 

 understands it to put his facts afterwards into such relation- 

 ship that they will serve him better. In feeding cows certain 

 constituents of feed called albuminoids, I want to know why 

 the cow should get these things. Not because anybody who 



