170 ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN'S ASSOCIATION 



that is true, but you must keep them all functioning, all 

 the same size and turning the same way, fastened on to 

 your vehicle, and in that way if you continuously keep after 

 it you will gradually grow up the hill toward success. 



I am going to take up just briefly the subject of feed- 

 ing. After what you heard from Professor Morrison, Pro- 

 fessor Fraser, Mr. Foss and others, it seems almost foolish 

 that I should say anything, and what I am saying has al- 

 ready been said and I am simply merely trying to boil it 

 down and get together a few threads as I see it, that should 

 be learned from this convention. 



First of all the dairy cow is kept because she can con- 

 vert things that we can't eat into a product that we can. 

 If we could eat corn silage and fodder and alfalfa hay 

 and all these things, perhaps we might be just as well off 

 without the dairy cow, but she is constructed to use those 

 things and convert them into one of the most wonderful 

 products that we have, and so we use her for that pur- 

 pose, therefore we must primarily look upon the dairy cow 

 as an animal or a machine to convert the farm-grown feeds 

 into these things, chiefly those farm-grown feeds that are 

 not marketable, such as corn, fodder, hays, straws, and the 

 general type of farm products that are not naturally of the 

 highest market value. Therefore I want to build up just 

 some rations, a ration, for you, really, analyzing it as prac- 

 tically as I can from the standpoint of the feeder. 



You have heard a great deal in regard to sweet clover 

 and alfalfa hay, and of course we usually consider a le- 

 gume, soy beans, cowpeas, clover, and all of these things 

 as one of the most fundamental foundation stones in the 

 building up of a ration for a dairy cow, and you can't al- 

 ways have those, although not many successful dairymen 

 are succeeding without an abundance of these. Usually 

 the fellow who uses them most abundantly is the most suc- 

 cessful, so have that as your guide ; start first on your feed- 

 ing proposition with getting some sort of a legum-B. 



The next thing a cow must have some sort of succu- 

 lence in the winter. When does the cow give the most 

 milk? When are they the most content and in the best 

 physical condition? Let me paint you just a little picture. 



