FORTY-SECOND ANNUAL CONVENTION 273 



practical thing to do is to have two silos, one for winter feeding 

 and one smaller in diameter for summer feeding. Farmers who 

 were fortunate enough to have summer silos during the past few 

 years are confident that sooner or later most farm.ers will have 

 summer silos. 



Amount of Peed. — The first condition given as typical of 

 the summer feeding is an abundance of palatable food, and on 

 this point is made one of the most common mistakes in feeding 

 cows. In producing milk, the cow may be looked upon in a way 

 as a milk producing machine which yve supply with a certain 

 amount of raw material in the form of feed, and this raw ma- 

 terial is manufactured into milk. The same rule holds in run- 

 ning the milk manufacturing plant as would hold in the running 

 of any other manufacturing plant; it is run most economically 

 near its full capacity. Every one who feeds animals should thor- 

 oughly comprehend that, first of all, the animal must use a cer- 

 tain proportion of its food to maintain the body. This is the 

 first requirement of the animal and it is the first use to which it 

 puts its food. 



In the case of an ordinary dairy cow the amount required 

 to maintain the body is about 60% of the ration. In the case 

 of a heavier producing animal the proportion of the ration used 

 for this purpose is less. It should be clear that, after going to 

 the expense of giving the animal the necessary amount to keep 

 her alive, it is the poorest economy to refuse to furnish the other 

 40% or 50% which she would utilize exclusively for milk pro- 

 duction. 



The only way to feed a cow economically is to feed her lib- 

 erally so she has the raw material to make into milk. Then if 

 she does not deliver the goods she should be sent to the butcher. 

 The farmer sometimes reasons that with higher priced feeds it 

 doco not pay to feed well. It certainly does not -pay under such 

 conditions to feed inferior cows liberally but such conditions 

 make it a]l the more necessary to feed good cows enough to use 

 all her milk producing ability. 



Overfeeding. — In some herds light milkers are overfed. If 

 a cow is already receiving sufficient feed for all the milk she i? 



