

PRODUCTIVE DAIRYING 



CHAPTER I 

 THE DAIRY COW AS A PRODUCER OF HUMAN FOOD 



The history of Agriculture in civilized nations has been one 

 of change from grain growing with livestock farming of a 

 mediocre sort as a mere incident, to definite livestock farming 

 with better animals; stock was chiefly of beef characteristics; 

 and from this grew a yet more intense cultivation of the fields 

 which are kept up in fertility largely by dairy cows. The best 

 dairy districts of Europe were once beef and grain-growing 

 centers and our own eastern states fifty years ago were noted 

 beef centers but are now systematically and intensively in the 

 business of producing milk. 



The West that once boasted of its large herds of cattle is now 

 cut up into farms of moderate size where many dairy-bred cows 

 are kept and many others are used in a dairy way. It is evi- 

 dent that the United States will either be a nation of balanced 

 dairy farms within a few decades or be an exception to the rule. 



The question may very properly be asked, Why this direc- 

 tion of affairs ? What is there inherent in the dairy type of 

 animal industry that adapts itself to our more intensive con- 

 ditions ? In this chapter, very briefly indeed, the chief reasons 

 are set forth. 



The cow as a converter or transformer of coarse, rough 

 feeds into fine grained and more valuable forms has no equal. 

 Physically speaking, the sun is our great original source of 

 warmth and energy. A small portion of the heat which is 

 poured so lavishly upon the earth each summer is captured by the 

 growing plants and stored, some as grain, a little as root crops, 

 but much more in such forms as grass and fodder. Only about 

 forty per cent of the solar energy captured by our cultivated 

 crops is in a form sufficiently fine to be used by man direct, for 



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momrr ubrary 

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