FEEDING COWS DURING THE GRAZING SEASON.

Temuka Leader, Issue 1185, 13 December 1883, Page 3

FEEDING COWS DURING THE GRAZING SEASON.

Grazing dairy cows is the almost universal practice of our farmers, without any regard to the condition of the grass, or the character of the season. This practice is well enough where there is full feed, and the cows get aU the food they can digest. It is not economy on the great majority of our farms, especially in the older States. As a rule the land devoted to pasture has been grazed for generations, has for many years received no manure except the droppings from the cows, and its best constituents hav> been carried ift in the s'lape of milk, veal and beef. The cow is a machine for making milk ai.d butter, andean noniore yield these commodities without suitable and abundant forage than a grist mill can turn out meal without com in the hopper. A certain portion of her food goes to keep her in good flesh. This has the first claim, and tome pastures do little more than meet this want. The milk grows small by degrees and beautifully less, until the cows dry up early in the fall. In other and better pastures, there is material for a good supply of milk far six' months in the year, and the average yield of butter on our farms probably does not reach two hundred pounds per ccw annually. With suitable additions to the rations gathered from the pasture there is little doubt that the yield could be brought up to an average of three hundred pounds of butter per year per cow, with more profit in the last hundred pounds than in the first two hundred pounds. The capital invested in the cow, the milking and care of milk are about the same whether the yield of butter be two or three hundred pounds. There is the additional expense for the food, and the labor of feeding. To oftset this you have, besides butter thfc better condition of the cow, a better calf, the additional quality of manure dropped upon the pasture and in the stable, and it's better to say nothing of the satisfaction of haviDg a sleek, profitable and. well-fed animal under daily observation. Esthetics are worth something above pecuniary value. We are trying this season, upon a thorough bred Jersey cow, the experiment of daily rations of cotton seed meal, one quart in the morning, wheat middlings one quart, corn meal one quart, at evening, in addition to pasture, and are surprised at the incense and excellence of the butter, and the growth of the manure heap.—American Agr cult mist.