356 FEEDING AND MANAGEMENT OF DAIRY COWS. 
qualifications. The proportion is probably not uniform as 
applied to all breeds indiscriminately, though it may be 
more so as applied to animals of the same breed. Bakewell’s 
idea was, that the quantity of food required depended much 
on the shape of the body; and it is well known that an 
animal of a close, compact, well-rounded form, will consume 
less than one of an opposite make. 
The variations in the yield of milch cows are caused more 
by the variations in the nutritive elements of their food, than 
by a change of the form in which it is given. “ A cow, kept 
through the winter on mere straw,” says a practical writer 
on this subject, "will cease to give milk; and, when fed in 
spring on green forage, will give a fair quantity of milk. 
But she owes the cessation and restoration of the secretion 
respectively to the diminution and the increase of her 
nourishment, and not at all to the change of form, or of out¬ 
ward substance, in which the nourishment is administered. 
Let cows receive through winter nearly as large a proportion 
of nutritive matter as is contained in clover, lucerne, and 
fresh grasses, which they eat in summer, and, no matter in 
what precise substance or mixture that matter may be con¬ 
tained, they will yield a winter’s produce of milk quite as 
rich in caseine and butyraceous ingredients as the summer’s 
produce, and far more ample in quantity than almost any 
dairyman with old-fashioned notions would imagine to be 
possible. The great practical error on this subject consists 
not in giving wrong kinds of food, but in not so propor¬ 
tioning and preparing it as to render an average ration of it 
equally rich in the elements of nutrition, and especially iri 
nitrogenous elements, as an average ration of the green and 
succulent food of summer.” 
We keep too much stock for the quantity of good and 
nutritious food which we have for it; and the consequence 
is, cows are, in nine cases out of ten, poorly wintered, and 
come out in the spring weakened, if not, indeed, positively 
diseased, and a long time is required to bring them into a 
condition to yield a generous quantity of milk. 
It is a hard struggle for a cow, reduced in flesh and in 
blood, to fill up the wasted system with the food which 
would otherwise have gone to the secretion of milk; but, if 
she is well fed, well housed, well littered, and well supplied 
with pure, fresh water, and with roots, or other moist tood, 
and properly treated to the luxury of a frequent carding, and 
constant kindness, she comes out ready to commence the 
manufacture of milk under favorable circumstances. 
Keep the cows constantly in good condition , ought, therefore, 
