TWO SORTS OF MILCH COWS. 23 



price per ton of fresh residuum cossettes is so small as compared 

 with the advantages to be derived from their use, that it becomes 

 possible to reduce the annual cost of the cow feeding to a mini- 

 mum. A cow properly looked after should yield over 6,000 

 pounds of milk per annum, this depending, within reasonable 

 limits, upon the animal's body weight. Light cows give pro- 

 portionally more milk than heavy ones, and the milk contains 

 more fat in the former than in the latter case. Argue as one 

 may, there are certain unknown factors in the case, and the re- 

 sults obtained in dairying tests are very contradictory. We 

 thoroughly believe in the advantages to be derived from the 

 breed, and admit at the same time the arguments of conforma- 

 tion of the animal independent of breed. A writer in a bulletin 

 of the Ohio experiment station points out that from the time 

 the first calf is born until the seventh year, cows will give in- 

 creasing quantities of milk for a given weight of fodder; from that 

 time on the secretion of the milk glands apparently diminishes. 



Dairying based on maternity of the cow is well explained by Dairying based 

 Prof. Henry. "Nature's practice of accumulating fat beneath on "wternity 

 the skin and between the muscular fibres of the animal's body ( 

 is to store heat and energy-producing material against a time of 

 need. The process at first goes on rapidly, but after a time the 

 system becomes gorged, and a further storage of fat is accom- 

 plished only at a high cost for feed consumed. How different 

 with the dairy cow, which eats heartily the food given her, not 

 for the purpose of storing fat to protect herself against a time of 

 possible bodily want, but for the nurture of the young. Food 

 given at night is digested and converted into milk ready for the 

 calf in the morning, the assimilated products disappearing from 

 day to day almost as soon as elaborated, making easy way for 

 more of the same kind from the same source the appropriation 

 by man of the milk designed by nature for the calf makes pos- 

 sible the great art of dairying man stimulates the dairy cow by 

 abundant feed and favorable surroundings to produce much 

 more milk than is really needed by the calf were it still the ob- 

 ject of her care." 



Milch cows may be considered from two points of view. f*o sorts of 

 for their milk-furnishing qualities and as a source of revenue for milch cows> 



