118 ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN'S ASSOCIATION 



one-half, because the cost of production would not be re- 

 duced. If a cow is treated so unkindly at milking time as 

 to have her yield shrunk one-sixteenth, which is such a 

 small amount as to be inappreciable unless the milk is 

 actually weighed, yet it would reduce the profit from the 

 average cow one-fourth. So kindness and comfort are of 

 great economic importance as well as matters of right sen- 

 timent and humane treatment. Mr. H. E. Crouch, the su- 

 perintendent who had charge of the cows for the six years, 

 was at all times careful and considerate of their comfort 

 which added much to the happy condition of her cow 

 family. 



Cows should get as much rest as possible as they are 

 doing their best work when comfortably lying down a large 

 portion of the time. When we started this Milk Per Acre 

 demonstration the cows were fed three times a day, but it 

 was some time after they had finished eating before all the 

 cows were lying down, with the result that they were actu- 

 ally down only about an hour and a half in the forenoon and 

 the same time in the afternoon. For this reason the feeding 

 was changed to twice a day with the result that they were 

 lying down practically all the time from ten in the morning 

 until 4:30 o'clock in the afternoon, or six and one-half 

 hours. This extra rest seemed to be an important factor in 

 the increased milk secretion. 



The care of the cows can all be summed up in the one 

 slogan which should be in every dairy barn: Keep the 

 Cows Healthy, Vigorous, and Comfortable. 



Feeding Com and Alfalfa. 



No other feed except the crops that were raised on the ? 

 twenty acres was given to the cows during the six years of | 

 the Milk Per Acre demonstration at the University of Illi- | 

 nois, and these crops were almost entirely corn and alfalfa. \ 

 The cows were fed all of the corn silage and alfalfa hay | 

 they would eat, consuming an average of thirty-seven and I 

 two-fifths pounds of silage and fourteen and one-half 

 pounds of alfalfa hay per day during the whole time. | 



The silage wasi made from a variety of corn commonly \ 



