54 
ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN’S ASSOCIATION. 
don’t know that they can raise a calf and keep it until two years old, and 
have a calf by her side, for thirty dollars ? I believe yon will say yes. Then 
I want to ask you if, after you have got that heifer raised (a calf from one 
of your best cows), if you would give her for such a cow as you have to go 
upon the street and pay forty-five dollars for ? I believe you will say no. 
Then does it pay to raise calves ? 
Let it first be fixed in your minds that it costs no more to raise a good 
calf than it does a poor one. Good stock for the dairy seems to be within 
the reach of every dairyman. There are the Holsteins, which have been 
bred for centuries with the object in view of perfecting them in milking 
qualities. There are the Ayrshires, for which wonders are claimed; and 
there are the Jerseys, that, when crossed with our larger kinds of stock, 
make cows far above the average. The milking strain of Durhams we 
know to be good, and we have now calves from this stock that are richly 
worth raising, but instead we are sending them to the butcher. Good males 
from all the above breeds are within the reach of us all. And when \\ e con¬ 
sider that it costs no more to keep a good bull than a poor one, wliat matter 
if we pay one, or even two hundred dollars ? Suppose four or five dairymen 
join in the purchase of a first class male, and breed him to a part of each 
dairy—those, of course, that are the best milkers raise the heifers and sell 
the males to others. Good milking stock is within the reach of every dairy- 
man. 
u But ” says one, u I have no room, no time, for raising calves. ’ Then I 
say keep fewer cows and better ones; make room for the calves. Then 
again, we hear them say “ it costs too much; the milk that a calf would take 
in raising up fit to go on to grass would fetch more than the animal would 
be worth.” Now in my plea for the calves I would say to those of you who 
take milk to cheese or butter factories, that it is easy to make arrangements, 
if done when you contract your milk, so that you may obtain either skimmed 
milk, buttermilk, or whey to raise the few calves you need to keep up youi 
dairy. A calf need not have new milk; give him the extra keeping when 
he gets so as to eat oats or bran, which they will begin to eat at four weeks 
old. Calves can be successfully raised on sweet whey and oat meal, warming 
them both together. What the calf will lose in growth the first six months 
can be put on the next six months by grain and good care. 
Whatever else eastern dairymen visiting us have failed to notice, they 
have not failed to remark that we had finer cows than they, but no finer than 
they used to have when they raised their own stock. As the country sur¬ 
rounding these dairy districts became exhausted and in course of time turned 
their attention to dairying, they were obliged to reach out farther, glad to 
purchase anything that was in the shape of a cow, until America should be 
ashamed of the class of cows that characterize eastern dairies. If we pur¬ 
sue the course we are now persuing it will be but few years before we, like 
them, will have inferior herds. We have already exhausted the country 
adjacent to us, and the cows we get are inferior in form and milking quali¬ 
ties, when compared with the cow* we used to raise, or were able to get 
from our neighbors. Great praise is due to those who have introduced and 
