ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN'S ASSOCIATION. 



45 



1 want to call your jittention to one thing. There may 

 seem to be but a trifling difference between these two cows. 

 Houston and Olive, as to depth of body, but at the end of 

 the year it amounts to a great (deal. The difference between 

 the cows was 40 per cent, additional cost from the spare 

 cow lacking depth over the spare cow with the deep body. 

 The next question is why this difference with cows under 

 the same care and with the same feed. We have had, 

 during the time that we have been carrying on this experi- 

 ment, several cows on the food of support, food of mainte- 

 nance. That is to ascertain how much of this the cow needs 

 for herself, and how much she will have to spare to convert 



ETHEL. 



into dairy products. We find after three winters' work that 

 it takes a pound of dry matter to support a hundred pounds 

 of cow during the day. Now, here we come to the secret of 

 the difference. If that is the case, then this cow requires 

 for herself eight pounds of dry matter for her food of sup- 

 port per day, and whatever she eats over and above that, not 

 putting any fat onto her body, she must necessarily convert 

 into milk, there is nothing else that she can do with it. This 

 other cow, w^eighing 1,300 pounds, will require 13 pounds of 

 dry matter for her food of support, or, in other words, before 

 she does anything for us, she uses 13 pounds of dry feed for 

 herself. We find in this report that Houston talves per day 

 20 pounds of dry matter; then she has left to convert into 



