FEEDING RATIONS. 159 



man that this food is utterly unfit for cows producing 

 milk when it is decomposing and offensively putrid, 

 although it is so used sometimes in districts where milk 

 for market is the chief product. As brewers' grains are 

 seen to be too rich in protein they are best used with 

 twice their dry weight of cornmeal. When fed in this 

 manner, as is common in some of the largest and best of 

 the milk dairies of AYestchester and other adjacent coun- 

 ties in New York, the milk is unsurpassed in quality. 



Mixing the food is a matter of economy in two ways; 

 viz., to secure complete consumption and the desired 

 results of it, and so both get all its possible products and 

 avoid waste. In our practice, every kind of fodder is cut 

 up finely in the winter feeding, and in the summer, when 

 soiling is practiced, the coarser kind of the green fodder 

 is cut up in the same way. The cut fodder is wetted 

 sufficiently to make the finely ground meal adhere to it, 

 and the usual ration of salt (one ounce per head) is added 

 and the whole evenly mixed and given to the cows. 



During all our experience in the dairy the observance 

 of the Sabbath day as a rest for man and beast has been 

 strictly kept up, and as some dairymen think that the 

 work cannot be suspended, even in part, on this rest 

 day, the method practiced for several years is here de- 

 scribed. In the summer, field Avork is left at 4 p. m. on 

 Saturday, and preparations are made for the next day's 

 feeding^ The fodder is cut and brought in from the 

 field to the barn for all day Sunday and for Monday 

 morning, and a supply is also cut and put under hay caps 

 for a reserve in case of bad weather on Monday. The 

 feed for Sunday morning is wetted and mixed and left 

 in the feed box, and that for the noon and evening is cut 

 and put in a heap on the floor near the box. Everything 

 that can be done is made ready for the next day, and by 

 seven in the evening the milking is all finished and every- 

 thing prepared for immediate use the next morning. Au 



