140 BOARD OF AGEICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



it is filled with ensilage it does not rot quickly, but if the 

 lumber is alternately wet and dry it rots quickly. 



As the result of our climate, we find feeding in the stable 

 to be necessary for six months of the year. In the stable 

 the very first requisite is cleanliness. If a cow lives in a 

 filthy stable, it costs more to feed the cow than if she is kept 

 clean. A cow should live in a light stable. Otherwise the 

 feed will not make so much milk or so good milk, will not 

 make so much increase of beef or so good beef, because light 

 is one of the great purifiers in the world, and keeps down 

 disease and the germs that make for ill health. I would 

 have a stable kept warm ; and in our country I would 

 allow the question of ventilation to take care of itself. I am 

 just l)old enough to say that. I would keep the stable light 

 and reasonably warm, and through the walls, doors and 

 windows air will enter in sufiicient quantity for the cows. 

 We should make our stable-feeding productive and profit- 

 able by keeping the cows in milk during the winter season. 

 We do that because milk brings a higher price from 

 November to May than from May to November. We do 

 that because we get the largest quantity of milk per cow per 

 year by having the cows milked ten months or ten months 

 and a half. We do that because we want our cows to give 

 us calves, directed in capacity and tendency towards large 

 production of milk. 



I meet with an objection sometimes which I may meet 

 here. " When a cow is kept in milk for ten months and a 

 half in the year, isn't the cow made very weak ? " I have 

 known cows that were dry for six months, resting all winter, 

 and they didn't gain enough strength to get up alone in the 

 spring. Resting from their labors as milkers does not 

 make them strong. But I never knew a cow that was 

 milked all winter and decently fed, as she is almost sure to 

 be, to be weak in the spring. Cows which are milked for a 

 long season are the stronger and give you calves having 

 habits like their own, with a large flow of milk every month. 

 Then milking during the winter months provides employ- 

 ment for the farmers and farm helpers, and that profitable 

 employment during the winter is one of the most important 

 achievements in farm management to-day. I do not know 



