226 ILLINOIS DAIRYMEN^S ASSOCIATION. 



Mr. Cobb: — The herd averaged 5.5. 



A Delegate: — I would like to ask a question in connection 

 with milk fever. If your cow is thin, and you want to get her 

 up in flesh the coming season, how can you get her there, without 

 feeding her some grain? 



Mr. Cobb : — I never have thin cows. I feed to keep every 

 cow in good flesh. 



A Delegate : — We will find a great many people losing 

 cows that are running on grass. 



Mr. Cobb : — I know that, and I am surprised at my im- 

 munity from it. I don't understand why it is. 1 am satisfied 

 that my way of feeding during the winter months is the proper 

 way. But why I should be immune in the summer time, I do 

 not know. Because I have seen herd after herd where people 

 have lost cows every year, with the milk fever. 



A Delegate : — Don't you think that this simple treatment 

 of having a bicycle pump or a syringe there, is a very simple 

 thing ? 



Mr. Cobb : — I think so ; for I was down in Connecticut 

 this winter. Prof Pearson was there from Cornell University. 

 He placed special stress upon one thing; that is, getting germs 

 into the cows' udders in this haphazard bicycle pump and syringe 

 idea. He advocates getting a — I don't know what they call it, 

 but it is one of these soda fountain tanks, and having it stored 

 with oxygen, and having it either at your own place or some 

 neighbor's ; and it is good as long as it is kept sealed, and use 

 that in place of the common air. He says, then you are not 

 going to take any chances at all, providing, of course, that the 

 tubes you use have been sterilized properly. 



A Delegate: — How would you sterilize the tubes? 



Mr. Cobb : — I use a two or three per cent solution of creolin 

 or carbolic acid. Boiling is all right, if the appliances will stand 

 boiling. 



