ILLINOIS dairymen's ASSOCIATION. 97 



It has been a repeated experience that a heifer of common parentage is not 

 as good as the mother. A word here lest it might be inferred that while a 

 constant effort at high grading should be maintained, that a crossing of pure 

 blood is desirable. To my mind such a course in the hands of any but a 

 scientific and experienced breeder would largely result in dissapointment. 

 m native or grade can in the nature of things differ more radically from a 

 thoroughbred than a thoroughbred of another breed. Let me again urge 

 that whatever selection be made it be strictly adhered to, or entirely 

 abandoned. ^^^^^.y 



As an important adjunct to breeding for the dairy, stands the matter of 

 feeding. As m many enterprises small matters may have more significance 

 than we are at first disposed to give them. Feeding for the dairy when taken 

 m connection with breeding should receive early attention 



While conditions of thrift and growth are to be duly regarded, let this 

 tact be constantly in mind, that the future of the calf for dairy purposes is 

 to be a machine to convert coarse bulky substances into articles of human 



fnn^'i"" r ^^^.^''^r.'''''''^^'*^^- ^^'^ ^^* ^^^^^ ^^^^^ «^ concentrated 

 food, for the result will be an animal that will not thrive well on pasture or 

 hay without It. All concede that grass contains in largest measure the proper 

 ingredients m right proportions for best dairy results. 



The great difficulty is to get a machine capable of digesting and assimil- 

 atmg a sufficient amount of it either as grass or hay. Let the food of the 

 young animal be such as shall tend to develop a capacious stomach and good 

 digestives. To do thiP skim-milk may be early substituted for whole milk 

 and bran with grass or finely cured rowen after weaning. 



As already intimated, nothing excels grass for summer feed and to se- 

 cure this for the longest time there must be a succession, both in order to 

 have a variety and to prolong the grazing season, by having those grasses 

 that mature at different seasons. These are best secured by permanent 

 pasture. 



The writer has often thought that if he were to eommenee a dairy farm 

 on virgin soil he would not allow a plow to disturb the native sod, but with 

 the aid of a sharp harrow or soarrifler would secure a setting of a variety of 

 grasses, trusting to nature's law before referred to,-' the survival of the fittest " 

 to secure permanency and adaptation. 



.h»5r "^il**' ^'^-^T' ''''"' maintaining the same general standard, a 

 change will be required corresponding to changed conditions 



W hile no inflexible rule can be laid down, this general one may be used 

 as a guide-that all rations should contain, in available form, nitrogen and 

 carbon in about the proportions of one of the former to five of the latter 

 such being the proportions in early-cut and well-cured hay 



While a majority of dairymen, Uke myself, are incapable of making 

 chemical analyses of any of the articles used for food for stock, those that 

 are capable have f urmshed some facts which we may make available. E W 

 Stewart, m a work on Feeding Animals, has given a number of rations sev- 

 eral of which seem well adapted to the West, containing, as they do that 

 which IS easily attainable. Among the articles mentioned, and which the 

 writer has, m an experience of several years, found most ;atisfacto^ aSe 



