26 HOLSTEIN-FRIESIAN CATTLE. 



food as in American dairies, and consequently no special drying up time at this 

 season of the year. Their calves have taken the skim milk up to this period. 

 But now all that are not needed to replenish the herd are driven to the market 

 and sold and the skim milk comes as extra food to the cows. This also helps to 

 maintain the flow of milk at this period. Thus they pass into the winter season 

 and summer dairying passes into winter dairying without any change in their 

 production of milk except what naturally results from a nearer approach to the 

 time for dropping their calves. 



The method of feeding after the cows leave the stables in spring and return 

 in autumn needs little description. They simply crop the grass of their pastures. 

 During this period they have no other food. They frequently change pastures. 

 The system of drainage makes small fields. Ditches impossible to cattle cross 

 each other as fences cross in this country. It is rare to find a continuous field 

 of more than fifteen acres. The fields communicate by bridges upon which bars 

 or gates are erected. Thus their cows may be easily limited in range and passed 





AMLETO, No. 8351 H. H.-B. 



Prize cow, World's Exposition, Amsterdam, in 1884. Milk record, 79} Ibs. in one day; 1 8,810^4 Ibs. 

 in 277 days. Butchered in 1887; dressed 66 per cent of live weight. 



from field to field as pasturage is renewed in them in growth and freshness. 

 This is undoubtedly an advantage in keeping up a steady flow and producing 

 the most milk possible for the acreage. It will be seen that this system of feed- 

 ing from one end of the year to the other is free from violent changes; that the 

 grasses are cut when most nutritious and least liable to injury from exposure, 

 and that extra rations are provided at the season when most needed for keeping 

 up the flow of milk. How far it conforms to science we leave for others to 

 decide. 



A very interesting account of the method of stabling cows in Friesland is 

 given below, by a correspondent w r ho was a close observer : 



" To begin with, let me say that Holland, or, more properly speaking, the 

 Netherlands, though but a small country, is not all a country of dikes and 

 windmills, and but a small part of it is an exclusive dairy country. The differ- 

 ent sections differ radically, as do the people who live in them. * Each section 

 has its own customs, industries, language, and own breeds of domestic animals. 

 So I will confine myself to describing to you that with which I am best 

 acquainted, to wit, how cattle are treated in the dairy section of the province 

 of Friesland, the original home of the Holstein-Friesian cattle. 



" There, grass is king, and plows are never seen yes, almost unknown to 



