FEEDING DAIRY CATTLE. 317 



CHAPTER IX. 



DAIRY CATTLE. 



" FIRST catch your hare/' was the preliminary advice for 

 cooking it. So, likewise, first select your dairy cattle 

 before you feed them. We do not propose to determine 

 which is the best breed for the dairy, but merely to mention 

 a few general principles that apply in the selection of dairy 

 cows of any breed. 



The dairy cow is almost an artificial creature. In a state 

 of nature the dam gave only milk enough to furnish food 

 for the calf during a short period, when her milk secretions 

 ceased. The capacious udder of the improved cow; the 

 long period of lactation ; her wedge shape, caused by the 

 broadening of her hips, to make room for her great labo- 

 ratory to work up raw materials into milk, the stomachs ; 

 her greater rotundity and fullness of frame all these 

 represent a great many generations of special breeding and 

 feeding to these ends. The bull that represents the 

 longest line of great milk-producing ancestors, on both 

 sides, is the most prepotent for the purposes of the dairy- 

 man. 



Those breeds that have been longest bred and used 

 specially as milk producers, must contain the largest pro- 

 portion of profitable milkers; and selections from these 

 will be the best breeders of dairy stock. 



The common dairy stock in this country has such a 

 mixture of blood, that they cannot be depended on as 

 breeders, especially when bred to males of the same class. 



