No. 4.] FEEDING OF DAIRY COWS. 137 



pastures, our botanist recommends the use of June grass as 

 the foundation or stock grass ; to that he adds two pounds 

 of meadow fescue, two pounds of orchard grass, one pound 

 of red top, two pounds of common red clover, two pounds 

 of alsike clover, two pounds of alfalfa and two pounds of 

 white Dutch clover. In this way we get a much larger 

 yield of food per acre than by sowing any one single grass. 

 These come into good pasturing condition at different times, 

 so that the pastures give a fresh bite to the cows for a longer 

 period. In the management of pastures we find advantage 

 from having the cows changed from one field to another from 

 time to time. If one could pasture his cows in one field for 

 a week and then give it a few weeks' rest by changing them 

 to another field, he would get better results in his cows and 

 better results in his fields than hy having his cows roam over 

 one field all the time. It is necessary to let cows have 

 access to plenty of pure water, and there is a great gain in 

 letting cows eat salt once every day, I made a test at one 

 time with a herd of cows by which I deprived part of them 

 of salt for two weeks at a time ; and I found a loss of milk 

 of about fourteen per cent on the average where the cows 

 received no salt for two weeks. I found the milk would 

 turn sour quicker in the same temperature than the milk 

 from cows in the same fields, treated the same in every way 

 except in the matter of access to salt. In summer time cows 

 will lick all the way from two ounces to four ounces a day. 

 I do not advocate the leaving of rock salt in the pastures, 

 because I think the cows would satisfy their tongues before 

 they satisfied their stomachs ; so I put down a box of ordi- 

 nary coarse salt, and the cows lick that as often as they want 

 it. A cow will not hurt herself in that way by taking too 

 much. 



In connection with pasturing cows we have to do some 

 supplemental feeding in order that the cows may be kept 

 from shrinking in hot weather when pastures are apt to l)c- 

 come bare and dry. For sui)plemental feed we find nothing 

 earlier than winter rye, but it is not a very nutritious food, 

 and it is not a feed that can be fed green for a long time, or 

 that cows like very well; so I prefer to supplement with 

 mixed cereals, oats, peas, barley and horse beans, combining 



