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upon the individual peculiarities of the animal and, so 

 long as sufficient nutriment is supplied and consumed, 

 very little upon the kind of food. Of course, the food 

 must be of such a nature that it will be relished by the 

 animal and sufficiently concentrated to supply the 

 needed nutriment in a moderate bulk, otherwise a cow 

 will not or can not eat enough to maintain the normal 

 functions of the body. If the kind of food has a 

 material influence upon the composition of milk, it 

 would be possible by modification of the ration to so 

 change breed characteristics that a typical Holstein 

 cow would give Jersey milk or a Jersey cow Holstein 

 milk. This, so far as I am aware, has never been 

 accomplished in a single generation, and I do not 

 believe that the individual character of any animal, so 

 far as it is manifested in the quality of milk, can be 

 materially changed by the kind of food. I have 

 known Holstein cows that gave very rich milk, and I 

 have known Jersey cows that gave very poor milk, but 

 these cows always did this independently of the 

 ration. 



External conditions, which often are not apparent, 

 seem to have a greater influence upon the richness of 

 milk than the kind of feed. This is shown by the 

 fact that the daily variations in the per cent, of fat, 

 in milk from the same cow, when no changes have 

 been made in the ration, are often greater than occur 

 when a radical change in food is made. Change of 

 environment, change of milkers, in fact anything 

 which tends to excite or worry the cow, will often 

 cause a decided variation in the per cent, of fat in her 

 milk, even when the yield is practically the same. 

 Moreover, the same conditions which increase the fat 

 in the case of one cow may diminish it with another. 



