ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN'S ASSOCIATION. 43 



her capacity to digest and assimilate food thoroughly the more 

 valuable she is but all changes must be gradual, sudden changes 

 from one kind of feed to another cause indigestion. 



The best feeders are born with a love for their dumb friends 

 they are men of close observation and judgment assisted in 

 time by experience they exercise these faculties at all times 

 when among their charge, no rules can be reduced to writing 

 and posted up in the cows stall for the feeders invariable guid- 

 ance if best results are to be obtained, close observation of each 

 individual cow is necessary, it is the eye of the feeder that feeds. 

 One glance will tell him if something is wrong and the remedy 

 applied ''an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure" is 

 nowhere more true than feeding dairy cows. 



The born feeder's love for his four footed friend prompts him 

 to look to their comforts at all times, during winter evenings he 

 takes a look at them before seeking his own pillow for the 

 night. 



He may know nothing about balanced rations but will be all 

 the more capable if he does, but place a calf in his charge and 

 he will make a prize winner of it where a feeder by rule will faiL 



We born American farmers in these times of bustle and 

 rush for riches find it hard to stick to our old fashioned milk 

 stool, to look after the small details of our dairy while the 

 Klondike fever is raging every where, born in a free land of 

 plenty it is but natural that the seeming close economy of the 

 dairyman does not attract the young but affluence will surely 

 come to him who follows its ways intelligently. A neighbor of 

 mine with a fine farm fifteen years ago, said he would never 

 milk cows, he raised corn and wheat till his land ran down. I 

 raised cows milked them and paid for two farms during the 

 same time; he is now one of the hustling dairymen of our 

 section, others are following suit. 



In the last weeks of October the frost usually has destroyed 

 the last of our green corn, a trying time for the dairy cow. 

 At this time we open our silo of which we have two; one i6x32x 

 20 feet deep, the other is 16x36x22 feet deep, both of wood and 

 above ground. Our regular ration consists of forty pounds en- 



