CHAPTER XXVII. 



FEED AND CARE OF THE DAIRY COW. 

 I. Care and Management. 



Monrad/ a most reliable dairy authority, tells us that in the 

 mountain districts of Norway, in the dawn of dairying, cows on 

 small farms were fed in winter on straw, birch leaves, reindeer moss, 

 and horse dung, cooked and given as a mash mixed with chaff and 

 leaves, while on large ones the mixture was fed uncooked. As late 

 as the close of the last century, herring hauled inland and stored in 

 snow banks were boiled with horse dung and shavings of mountain 

 ash and birch bark for feeding goats, sheep, and young cattle. Along 

 the coast even now herring, fish offal, seaweed, and ocean alga are 

 fed in spring time when the hay gives out. The butter yield on the 

 summer mountain pastures in the early times was from 24 to 48 

 lbs. per cow for the season, and the annual yield of milk from a 

 good cow ranged from 1,600 to 1,800 lbs. While the changes from 

 such primitive times have been great, the cow has generously re- 

 sponded to every advancement in feed and care. 



695. Dairying and maternity. — When a steer is fattening, the pro- 

 cess goes on rapidly at first, but after a time it is accomplished only 

 at a high cost for the feed consumed. How dift'erent is the dairy 

 cow, which takes her food, not for storing what she makes from it for 

 her own use, but for nurturing her young. Food given to her at 

 night is converted into milk by morning, and soon drawn from her, 

 makes easy way for more. So strong is the maternal impulse that, 

 if food fails, the cow will for a considerable time draw from her 

 flesh and bones the substances necessary to maintain the milk flow 

 and preserve its normal composition, in order that her young may be 

 properly nourished. (604) The basis of dairying is the matecnity of 

 the cow, and success in this art depends upon rationally recognizing 

 this great basic fact. W. D. Hoard of Wisconsin^ first brought this 

 form of the subject prominently to the attention of dairymen. Who- 

 ever will study dairying from this standpoint will come to regard 

 the cow in a new light and become a better dairyman. 



^ Hoard 's Dairyman, April 16, 1909. 

 ^ Bui. No. 1, Wis. Farmers ' Inst., and elsewhere. 



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