234 ILLINOIS DAIRYMEN'S ASSOCIATION. 



in because the silage was in there and they could smell it. It 

 makes their mouths water. If you go out to your table and it is 

 set nicely and you are real hungry your mouth will water, too. 

 What will that indicate? You can eat, digest and assimilate 

 your food and do good work on it, unless you have the dyspepsia. 

 I believe, my friends, there is nothing as important in the line 

 of feeding as this matter of palatability, to have the things taste 

 right to the cow. To have all this you must run the machinery 

 near the maximum. She must get that stuff from her food. 

 Nothing will help so much as to have a palatable ration. Clover 

 hay. Take in some clover hay, and the farmer can tell then if it 

 is good or not. Cut it just at right stage. Don't you suppose 

 the cow generations back knew the smell of it, and she knows it 

 now. 



I was fourteen years old when father died and I had to run 

 up against the business. I asked a man when to cut hay, and he 

 told me one time and another told me some other time, and I had 

 to learn. 



Silage is a good succulent food. The cow likes it. I cannot 

 go into this talk on feeding, as I haven't the time and should miss 

 my train. But let me say one or two things more. No matter 

 whether you keep one cow or fifty, let me ask why you do it unless 

 to bring you in a good profit, and to do that you have got to take 

 care of them. She must have good care. Your cows must be 

 comfortable. You must keep them warm, and you must feed 

 them up to the limit. There is no use in being a cow keeper, you 

 must profit from them. It takes as I said $18 or $20 to keep the 

 cow, and after you have paid that for the machinery you must 

 make the machinery run to its maximum capacity, and then you 

 will find there is nothing in Illinois, or Michigan, or any other 

 state that will pay as good and even a profit as the dairy cow. 

 Then you can take the excrements from that cow and put it on the 

 land to help pay a larger per cent of profit. 



It is a good thing to have a business that pays a good profit 

 every year, and goes on paying it ; that not only pays a good 

 profit every year, but also a good income. I have seen the time 



