4 BULLETIlSr 912, U. S. DEPAKTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



least it appeared that way to her owner, since she would give milk 

 for only five or six months and then go dry until the next freshening. 

 When her owner found out from the first year's records that she had 

 been dry for six months and had produced only 3,351 pounds of 

 milk during the year, he decided that she should go to the stock- 

 yards at Omaha when she went dry again. So, as soon as the cow 

 freshened, the owner began to feed her a little grain to keep her in 

 condition so that it would not take so long to fatten her for beef 

 after she went dry. But Prohibition did not go dry. With that 

 extra grain she kept milking month after month, and at the end of 

 the year she had 7,043 pounds of milk to her credit. The owner did 

 not sell her, but he did chang-e her name. 



Fig. 1.— a barn typical of those on the farms studied. 



A study of the original figures shows that grain was not fed so 

 economically as it could have been. During the first winter one herd 

 received only 3.8 pounds of grain for each 100 pounds of milk pro- 

 duced, while another herd received 82.5 pounds. Such a wide range 

 in the quantity of concentrates fed was probably due to the fact that 

 the dairy business is relatively new in this section and the most 

 economical methods have not yet been generally adopted by the 

 dairymen. Some dairymen in this section, however, are already 

 following profitable methods of feeding and are giving their herds 

 better care and improving them by breeding and selection. There 

 was also a wide variation between the two winters and between the 

 two summers in the quantity of grain and roughage fed. The wide 



