Vol. LXV. No. 2921 
NEW YORK, JANUARY 20, 1906. 
WEEKLY, $1.00 PER YEAR 
SOME SUGGESTIONS ABOUT COWS . 
Comfort and Cow Feed. 
WINTER SHELTER.—The season has arrived when 
the dairyman must devote more time and thought to 
the care of his cows. The first essential, perhaps, is 
comfortable quarters. In the Middle West some dairy¬ 
men consider a barbed wire fence adequate shelter. 
Where timber is more plentiful most dairymen provide 
some sort of shelter. How varied are men’s ideas in 
regard to what kind of shelter cows need! Some think 
a stable sided with matched lumber and ceiled none 
too good, while others seem to consider a frame about 
all that is necessary. How often may be found great 
heaps of snow in the cow stable! Bodily heat must 
be maintained, and those who have tried it know that 
lumber is cheaper than feed, and at the same time 
affords greater comfort. If one cannot afford to buy 
material with which to reside and ceil the stable, or 
even to batten the cracks in the old siding, he certainly 
can nail strips a few inches apart upon the 
inside of the studdings and fill the space 
thus formed with straw. This will make 
a stable very comfortable in zero weather. 
Don’t be afraid of getting the stable too 
warm. While talking last Fall with a 
farmer who contemplated fitting up a 
part of his barn for cows, the writer sug¬ 
gested that, with the ship-lapped siding 
and good tight ceiling boards, a good, 
warm stable could be made. The farmer 
thought this would make the stable en¬ 
tirely too warm. When asked why, he 
told of a, neighbor whose stables were en¬ 
closed by a single thickness of well- 
matched siding, and when the doors were 
opened on a cold Winter morning “steam 
would just roll out.” This leads us to a 
very important subject; one that should 
receive more consideration from the stock 
owner, that is, ventilation. Many dairy¬ 
men put up expensive buildings, being 
careful to have them warm, and when 
Winter comes and it is time to close the 
stables tightly, they find, or think they 
do, that they have overdone matters. How 
often do we see these so-called, too-warm 
stables pouring forth great clouds of 
“steam” from the open windows. In the 
opinion of the writer it is wellnigh im¬ 
possible to make a stable uncomfortably 
warm when properly ventilated. One fre¬ 
quently sees cows coming from one of 
these window-ventilated stables with their 
backs covered with frost, or what soon 
becomes frost. If one must use the window system of 
ventilation, it is cheaper and better to utilize the cracks 
in the siding and save the expense of the windows. 
MILK-MAKING RATIONS.—Having provided suit¬ 
able shelter for his cows the dairyman should turn his 
attention to properly feeding them. I was about to 
say he should do this scientifically, but if I put it that 
way I fear I must qualify the statement. So many are 
prejudiced against anything about which they imagine 
they detect the earmarks of science. This is not to be 
wondered at when we take into consideration some of 
the awful documents sent out by our scientific friends. 
The jaw-breaking terms they employ are about as diffi¬ 
cult for the average person to digest as the much ma¬ 
ligned “breakfast foods.” But what is science? Briefly 
stated, it is classified knowledge. To do anything 
scientifically, then, means simply to do it intelligently. 
That is just what the dairyman must do to get best 
results. The writer is satisfied that many of our suc¬ 
cessful dairymen employ more science in feeding their 
cows than some of the so-called scientists. The suc¬ 
cessful feeder has a thorough knowledge of each indivi¬ 
dual cow’s needs, while the “scientific feeder’s” knowl¬ 
edge is often confined to feeding tables. I do not wish 
to be understood as trying to belittle the work being 
done by our agricultural colleges, as I believe they are 
doing a grand work for the farmer and dairyman. 
When we pick up some of the bulletins sent out, and 
try to read them, we are not long in discovering why 
so much prejudice exists against their authors and the 
institutions they represent. That a farmer (this in¬ 
cludes the dairyman) could learn things at the agricul¬ 
tural college, which, added to his practical knowledge 
of his business, would prove of incalculable value to him, 
there is no question. And, on the other hand, some of 
these same farmers could give undoubtedly some point¬ 
ers to their college friends, that would prove a revela¬ 
tion to them. 
BALANCING THE FEED.—We are told we must 
feed a balanced ration. What is a balanced ration? 
Scientists tell us that a cow of a certain weight, giving 
PERCHERON COLT “MACK,” RAISED ON COW’S MILK. Fig. 18. See Page 49. 
yield the greatest returns, cost considered. Often the 
increased yield will not pay for the extra feed. A case 
in point. Last season a neighbor was milking eight 
cows while we were milking 11. His cows were pro¬ 
ducing nearly as much milk as ours. In order to outdo 
us he began fairly to cram his cows with ground corn 
and oats. With the high price of the grains mentioned, 
and milk at 60 cents per 100, I am of the opinion that 
he paid dearly for the glory he got out of making such 
a “record.” This man was getting as much or more 
milk from eight cows as his neighbor was from 11, and 
that was all he knew about it, for he never stopped to 
consider how much the extra milk cost him. 
A FEEDING EXPERIMENT—The writer once de¬ 
termined to feed a herd of cows a well-balanced ration, 
consisting of the prescribed amount of grain to produce 
the maximum yield. Accordingly bran was purchased 
as the most available feed to increase the milk-producing 
properties of the ration. To facilitate the work of feed¬ 
ing a measure holding an average feed for one cow was 
used. This measure was filled scantily 
or heaped to correspond as nearly as pos¬ 
sible with the quantity and quality of 
milk each cow gave. In addition to the 
grain, the cows were given all the clover 
and Timothy hay night and morning, and 
corn stover at noon they would eat up 
clean. The grain ration was increased 
until the herd as a whole had ceased to 
respond further to the increased feed. 
Then we began to lessen the grain allow¬ 
ance to see what we could learn by this. 
This was continued until the experimental 
herd, consisting of eight cows, was get¬ 
ting 30 pounds less than the maximum 
feed of grain, and giving 22 pounds less 
milk. By reducing the grain allowance 
we saved 33 cents’ worth of feed and lost 
about 15 cents’ worth of milk per day. 
This means a saving of over two cents 
per day per cow, taking the average of the 
whole herd. In reducing the grain allow¬ 
ance some cows began to shrink in milk 
yield at once, while others did not shrink 
perceptibly till their allowance was re¬ 
duced nearly 50 per cent. These cows 
had just been purchased, and it was our 
aim to determine just how much grain 
each cow would consume with profit. 
Strange to say, some of the best cows 
could not profitably be fed more than two 
or three pounds of grain, while others 
would turn to good account five to eight 
pounds. 
COW WISDOM.—We learned another 
a certain quantity of milk, containing so much butter 
fat, must have a ration that will furnish heat, energy, 
muscle, milk, etc., in the proper proportions. If too 
much or too little fat-forming food, for example, be 
given, the cow will either gain or lose in flesh, and the 
food is said to be not a balanced ration. To enable one 
to prepare a balanced ration scientists have made up 
tables of feeding stuffs, giving their chemical analyses. 
With the tables before him the feeder theoretically can 
prepare a ration containing the necessary constituents 
to supply bone, muscle, fat, milk and other parts of the 
cow in just the right proportions to keep her healthy, 
enable her to produce a normal flow of milk, and at the 
same time neither to gain nor lose in weight. How¬ 
ever, theory is one thing and practice another. That a 
ration prepared from such tables will give better results 
than the average hit-or-miss (and it is more often 
miss) ration there is little doubt. But whether such a 
ration is best and most economical is quite a serious 
question, one that each feeder must determine for himself. 
The practical feeder’s aim is to give the feed that will 
thing about feeding while conducting this little exper¬ 
iment, and that was that a cow often knows more about 
balancing rations than the feeder. Given her choice of feed 
within certain limits, a cow will do better than if forced 
to eat what the feeder sees fit to give her. In a general 
way, a “raw-boned” cow will use to advantage more 
fat-forming foods than a smoother animal. This fact 
(it seems a fact to the writer) leads me to ask those 
who are in a position to know or to learn by investiga¬ 
tion whether every cow makes the same use of her 
feed up to a certain limit? That is, if two cows are 
each fed a certain quantity of feed, containing, for 
example, 10 pounds of heat-forming material, will each 
cow use it, so to speak, for that purpose', and for no 
other? Scientists tell us that a cow giving a certain 
quantity of milk must be fed a ration containing ap¬ 
proximately 2Vi pounds of protein. Yet are there not 
cows producing this quantity of milk, and of the same 
quality, from feed which the chemist tells us contains 
less than half the above quantity of protein? If the 
scientist is correct,' who can explain how a cow can 
