ILLINOIS DAIRYMEN'S ASSOCIATION. I I 5 



1 no money out of it, can't lay it to the cows. It is the man's method of 

 operation; he must be born again. Get an agricultural education, and 

 show him how to farm. He should surely move to town and let his 

 son run the farm, if he is too old to learn. And after you have got those 

 cows and resolved you will feed them a balanced ration, you will breed 

 them so the coming calves will be better than their mother, and it will 

 take a good many years to acquire the knowledge that is necessary in 

 this up-to-date time of dairying to manage that part of the dairy in every 

 detail. 



I .want you to understand this, that a dairy farm, the unit of which 

 is one acre of land and make it produce all it will produce with the right 

 kind of dairy foods, and the dairy itself must be the unit of competition, 

 and it can come to that standard which you must fix. And the other 

 thing, we must be breeders to some extent of dairy cattle. Let us have 

 a whole lot of young heifers, just fresh, 2V 2 to 3 years, to sell off of the 

 farm. They will sell just as readily as a man sells eigh?; to ten steers to 

 the farm, and you can do it just as well as not, and you don't have to 

 sell the best ones either; keep them for your own use. 



I want to talk to you a little bit more; I want to get close- to yon. 



' Let us consider in this northern latitude, about such a day as this, what 

 is required at our hands as a keeper of a dairy mother that has just 

 brought forth her young and expect to make something of her during her 

 milking period in a year. Every cow before she freshens should be put 

 in a hospital stall and that is a big proposition. It should be a box stall 

 in your barn that opens into the barn and not outdoors. Every dairyman 

 ought to have, two at least, of them. If that cow is to freshen I should 

 have her in that box stall hospital, summer or winter, a little time fe- 

 fore she freshens. If the grass is abundant in the middle of June and 

 she is a good milker and you put her out she will fill up. But put her 

 in that stall and turn her out nights, only part of the time, and take off 

 her ration a little. If in July and August and the pasture is short and 

 the sun is hot and she is an old cow, don't let her grub around all day to 

 get enough to satisfy her appetite. Supplement her feed with a little 

 grain ration and let her lie down and take her rest. If a young cow she 

 needs looking after. Summer or winter let these cows have a hospital 

 stall two or three days before they freshen. 



