468 DISEASES OF CATTLE.. 



Our dairy cow lias given nearly six times as much ajh, six times as 

 much protein, and TO per cent as much fat as is returned by the steer, 

 with 1.2 pounds of milk sugar, against Avhich the steer has nothing to 

 show. If we reduce this milk sugar to its fat equivalent by dividing 

 by 2.2 we find the milk sugar given by the cow to be worth for food 

 purposes 0.56 of a pound of fat. All of the constituents of the milk are 

 digestible and furnish the best of human food, while much of the 

 increase of the steer is hardly available for food as we commonly use 

 meat. At the present time, when coarse feeds and grains are raised in 

 such enormous quantities in America, we are more or less indifferent to 

 the relative economy of the cow and steer in condensing gross hay and 

 the coarse grains into human food, but when population becomes great 

 the steer must give way before the cow in the contest of economically 

 producing food for men. 



THE ART OF DAIRYING BASED ON THE MATERNITY OF THE COW. 



^Nature's purpose in storing fat beneath the skin and between the 

 muscular tissues of the animal body is to lay up heat and energy 

 material against the time of need.- This process goes on rapidly at 

 first, but after a time the system seems gorged, and further storage is 

 secured at a high cost for feed. How different with the dairy cow. 

 Food given at night, for instance, is digested and elaborated into milk 

 ^ready for the calf in the morning, and is at once disposed of instead of 

 being stored up and added to the body to be utilized and carried about, 

 and it is for this reason, probably, that the cow surpasses the steer in 

 the economical manufacture of human food. 



It is the appropriation by man of food, material intended for the calf 

 that makes possible the great art of dairying. Under the stimulus of 

 good feed an4 long selection our dairy cow produces much more milk 

 than is needed for the calf, and has become more or less an artificial 

 creature. 



The basis of the whole dairy system is the maternity of the cow, and 

 the successful management of a dairy depends upon fully comprehend- 

 ing and intelligently following out this idea. To ex-Governor W. D. 

 Hoard, of Wisconsin, belongs much credit for bringing this view to the 

 attention of our dairymen, and the effort has been of untold value, for 

 no one can fairly consider the problem as thus stated without regard- 

 ing the dairy cow in a new light. 



SHELTER. 



I have spoken favorably of open sheds for steer feeding, urging that 

 with his load of fat and stomach filled with heating grain this creature 

 has a better appetite and is more comfortable with the freedom of such 

 quarters than in the average stable. For reasons just shown our dairy 

 cow is under very different conditions and shrinks from cold and expo- 



