Feeding Dairy Cattle 

 good. The breeders of the Holstein-Friesian breed had bet- 

 ter give their attention to the study of methods of breeding, 

 which may on the one hand increase the normal fat content 

 of the milk of the breed, if that is deemed desirable, and which 

 must be done at the expense of a less quantity of milk, and 

 on the other hand, to methods of breeding which will increase 

 capacity of the breed as a whole, to utilize feed above main- 

 tenance and change it into milk. Suppose a method should 

 be found which would cause a cow to test higher than her 

 normal inherited percentage for seven or thirty days or even 

 a year. What good would that do the breed? Until it was 

 established beyond doubt that a certain breeder was doing 

 something which was influencing the production of his indi- 

 viduals for short periods of time, of course he would make 

 money, but it would be a great boon to the breed if some way 

 could be found to enable a cow to turn more food into milk ; 

 but it is the firm conviction of the writer that it is futile to 

 look for methods of this kind except through breeding for 

 greater capacity and production. This kind of work will 

 permanently better the breed. 



To be sure of his ground, the writer has looked over 

 rather carefully the literature on this subject in recent years, 

 by consulting the Experiment Station record. The only 

 positive evidence that appeared was found in Bulletin loo, 

 by C. H. Eckles, of the Missouri Experiment Station. 

 Eckles' work was wholly along the line of feeding the animal 

 previous to the beginning of the test and getting her fat. 

 When this was done the percentage of fat in the milk would 

 be high during the first part of the lactation period. The 

 effect persisted to a more or less extent through the whole 

 lactation period. This kind of feeding is to be advised, 

 because undoubtedly the capacity of the animal to produce is 

 increased in a perfectly legitimate and normal manner, and it 

 is a case of actually turning more feed into milk. 



The experiments along the line of the specific eflfects of 

 different feeds have been very numerous, but any positive 

 effect of any one feed or combination of feeds is shown to be 

 short and slight. It is probable that in many cases the effect 

 could be shown to be within the limits of experimental error 

 if a careful study were made. 



A number of experiments on the use of the extracts from 

 certain glands of the body, particularly the pituitary gland, 

 for the purpose of increasing the percentage of fat in milk, 

 and also for increasing the amount secreted, have given posi- 

 tive results for short periods of time, but these results usually 



Page Eighty-nine 



