ILLINOIS DAIRYMEN'S ASSOCIATION. 37 



about the length of time that a cow should stand dry before she comes in. My 

 experience is that it should be about six or eight weeks and I know that I have 

 injured several cows by milking them up to four weeks of calving. 



Mr. Johnson : That depends on circumstances. The way some cows are 

 kept in this country, they ought to run dry six months in order to get flesh on. 



Mr. Boyd : I think that a cow that is a persistent milker ought to go dry 

 four or six weeks at least. If they do not they lose more after the next calf is 

 dropped than if you stopped milking them. It depends more upon the cow 

 than upon what she is fed. I have got a cow that you can not dry up. 



Mr. Allen : I find that many of my Jersey cows hold out very well to 

 milk. Some times they will not dry up all, but I do not think it is a good plan to 

 allow the cows to run up to near the time of coming in. The calf is feeble, and 

 if you raise the heifer calves they are weak. They do not do as well as if the 

 cow has more time. 



Mr. Stockwell : My experience is that you will get just as much milk 

 from a cow in nine months, as if you milked them longer, for resting three 

 months will make up for the extra time of milking. 



Mr. Johnson : I think another element in this is the milker. I milk all the 

 time from sixty to eighty cows, and I never yet had a cow that one of my men 

 could not dry up. 



Mr. Lincoln : It is my experience that if we take a heifer and commence 

 by milking her as long as we can, she will be more persistent than if she dried 

 up pretty quick. If she is dried up quick at first, she will always be inclined to 

 dry up about the same. 



Mr. Reed : I am not much of a dairyman. We raise all kinds of stock on 

 our farm, in connection with the dairy work. But I think we usually milk our 

 cows up to about six weeks of calving. It is better for the cow one year fol- 

 lowing another. Professor Henry was speaking of producing milk at 60 

 cents a hundred in the winter. Now, I do not believe that it is possible to pro- 

 duce milk on our land here at 60 cents a hundred, when we take into con- 

 sideration the value of the land and everything. I would like to have Prof. 

 Henry give us the figures on which he based that statement. 



Prop. Henry : I absolutely refuse, Mr. President, to do anything of the 

 kind. It would be a libel on the general intelligence of this audience for me to 

 get up here and attempt to figure that out. I am in the presence of a hundred 

 farmers, and they can figure better than I, and they ought to figure. I had the 

 pleasure of visiting a Wisconsin gardener, Mr. J. M. Smith, of Green Bay, who 

 has a farm of forty-five acres, all laid out with fruit and vegetables. By the 

 way, he carried his first vegetables to market in a market basket, and went in 

 debt for his first horse and wagon. While I was visiting him I asked how many 

 radishes he sold, and he would pick up his book and tell me, for instance, 

 how many radishes he sold on the 12th day of May, 1877; and so with his cab- 

 bages, and everything else. ■ He kept account of his garden and he knows 

 exactly where he stands, and he is not only raising a garden, but he is raising a 

 family of seven boys. He is doing splendidly all around. This is the twelfth 

 convention of the Illinois Dairymen, and I hope that twelve more conventions 

 will not come around until you can talk a little more intelligently about your 

 farms. 



