ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN’S ASSOCIATION. 
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our hearty support and cooperation. 
S. K. Bartholemew : Had hoped to here this topic 
discussed by men of more experience, and of a greater scien¬ 
tific knowledge of the thing than he had. Dairymen are 
full of whims concerning this feeding question. He had 
notices that between dairymen and their cows there was a 
striking similarity,, both were stubborn and both w T ere 
greedy animals. A cow is never satisfied with her food, 
and if you give her a chance she will kill herself, and a 
man will do the same thing if you give him a loose rope. 
The question is, what shall we feed our dairy cows. 
We are limited as to the amount of foreign food used, but 
we must have a certain amount of coarse food, such as 
straw, hay, etc. Neither one of these articles contains the 
qualities for milk to any great extent. Thought wheat bran 
was one of the best milk feeds known; after this comes 
oats and corn. The question is, in what proportion should 
these be fed. He believed it was generally considered that 
the grinding of grain was a benefit so far as it is used as an 
article of milk food. Grinding puts grain in a condition to 
digest well. Every man suits himself as to his manner and 
time of feeding. Every man feeds for profit, and believes 
he is feeding in the most profitable way. 
He fed a mixture of bran, corn meal and linseed meal; 
the last he preferred to oat meal. There is no rule I can 
lay down here for feeding. I can only say that I think the 
best milker should receive the most feed. He was feeding 
at present about twelve pounds of meal per day_six 
• pounds brans, four pounds corn meal and two pounds lin¬ 
seed meal. This mixture produced good results, as his 
cows averaged 25 pounds per day. He could produce 100 
