CHAPTEE XXVnL 



FEED JJTD OAEE OF THE DAEBT COW. 



I. Care and Management. 



695. Dairying based on maternity of the cow. — Nature's practice 

 of accunmlating fat beneath the skin and between the muscular 

 fibers of the animal 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 accomplished only at a high cost for feed 

 consumed. (565) How different with the dairy cow, which eats 

 heartily the food given her, not for the pxirpose of storing fat to 

 protect herself against a time of possible bodily want, but for the 

 aurture of her young. Food given at night is digested and con- 

 verted into mUk ready for the calf in the morning, the assim- 

 ilated products disappearing from day to day almost as soon as 

 elaborated, making easy way for more of the same kind from the 

 same source. Doubtless it is because the milk product is daily 

 given up by the cow that she so greatly excels the steer in the 

 economical production of human food; for the steer, gaining in 

 weight and fat, must vitalize and carry about as a part of the 

 body, day after day, aU the added flesh. (612) 



The appropriation by man of the milk designed by nature for 

 the calf makes possible the great art of dairying. Taking ad- 

 vantage of the all-powerful itapulse of motherhood for the pres- 

 ervation of the young of the species, man stimulates the dairy 

 cow by abundant feed and favorable surroundings to produce 

 much more mUk than is really needed by the calf were it still 

 the object of her care. In so doing he has made the dairy cow 

 more or less an artificial creature. 



The basis, then, of our dairy system is the maternity of the 

 cow, and successful dairying depends upon rationally recognizing 



