Record of Twelve Cows,, 



WHICH SERVED AT THE STATION FOR EXPERIMENTS 



TO ASCERTAIN THE COST OF FEED FOR THE 



PRODUCTION OF MILK. 



581. When entering upon the task to ascertain the cost of feed 

 for the production of milk — 1884— it was decided to begin our inquiry 

 with cows of moderate milking qualities. Grades of all kinds of 

 breeds were to serve for that purpose. A selection from that class 

 of cows, at the outset of our observation, promised to prove of a 

 special interest, not only on account of their large representation in 

 our dairy stock, but also for the particular chance which our final 

 results would offer to draw more directly the line where milk produc- 

 tion ceases to be a profitable business. The material for the subse- 

 quent report has been carefully collected during a period of several 

 years. The results, it is true, are obtained under somewhat excep- 

 tional circumstances, — yet their detailed description cannot fail to 

 show more clearly the financial relation of milk production to a sys- 

 tem of a mixed farm management. 



The cows, which served in our trials, were in every instance 

 secured a few days after calving. They were sold to the butcher 

 usually when their daily yield of milk fell below from five to six 

 quarts, to make room for a new milch cow. The cost of the differ- 

 ent animals varied from fifty-five to seventy- two dollars apiece — 

 they sold at the close of their trial for from twenty-five to thirty- 

 seven dollars each. The general management of the entire experi- 

 ment was conducted with a view to promote the general health of the 

 animals on trial. Two cows had lost in weight during the experiment 

 and ten had gained more or less. The change from one diet to 

 another was as a rule a gradual one. 



The temporary change in the composition of the daily diet was 

 mainly confined to the coarse and bulky fodder ingredients. Meadow 

 hay, dry fodder corn, corn stover, corn ensilage and roots besides 

 some small quantity of various dried fodder crops, incidental to 

 some field experiments with forage crops, were fed during the latter 

 part of autumn, the winter and the spring, — while several green crops, 

 as oats or barley and vetch, serradella and cow peas were substituted 

 during the summer and part of the fall season. The several previ- 



