62 On Breeding Cows for the Dairy. 
inferior grade has been produced? The practice (in too many 
cases,) has been to take the calf from the cow, when a few days 
old, and learn it to drink. New milk is fed, some three and per- 
haps four weeks. It is then fed with skimmilk, buttermilk, or 
whey; and as the calf will naturally be doing bad, and wishing 
to make it do better, this light food is given in larger quantities, 
so that the stomach is kept full, hunger and the appetite for food 
is kept satiated. It has no propensity to eat grass, and such food 
as would be healthful. It becomes pot-bellied, as we usually term 
it; the hair becomes long, and looks rough, and every appearance 
of the animal is bad, and wishing to improve it, the worse it 
does, the larger the quantity of this unnatural food, (which is the 
cause of the difficulty,) is thrown into the stomach, and in this 
the order of nature is reversed, and as a natural consequence, the 
young animal is doing bad, and must continue to do so, until na- 
tural rules are observed. 
In addition to all this, another wrong (or neglect, which the 
already injured constitution is illy suited to bear,) is inflicted. 
It is, in the fall of the year, left to eat frozen grass, run out and 
pick its living as it can until winter has set in, in good earnest. 
It is no wonder that with such treatment we rear an inferior grade 
of neat stock. What horses, think you, should we rear, if we 
treated our colts in this way? All experience has shown, that 
if we wish to rear a good animal, we must give them good care 
and keeping while young, and this holds good as well in the 
vegetable as the animal productions. 
As the dairy-men of our county cannot well afford to rear 
calves, by giving them half the milk that a good cow will yield, 
and as it is evident that the practice last alluded to, ought not to 
be followed any longer, another practice has been pursued by 
some with good success, and seems, to a great extent, to accord 
with natural principles. It is, to feed new milk wholly, the first 
four or five weeks, and then boil a small quantity of hay in water, 
which when taken out, leaves the liquor the color of coffee; a 
small quantity of oat meal, or canel of wheat, with a handful to 
each calf, of flax-seed, is put in and boiled. This composition 
