BUILD UP YOUR HERD.

Bruce Herald, Volume XXX, Issue 3025, 6 January 1899, Page 6

BUILD UP YOUR HERD.

The sooner the farmer and dairyman comprehends that it is better to make his own dairy herd, the better. He has the raw material, the cow that can raise a calf. The rest of the raw material is the brains of the owner and the cow feed that he grows on the farm. With the brains, feed, and a calf-raising cow to start with, he can in time develop a good dairy cow. The first process fn the development is to take a lot of these calfraising cows and begin by testing, so as to find out what is in them. Three months will show that a | large per cent, of them are. wholly unprofitable for dairy purposes, a small per cent, will pay their way and not much more, and a few will be immediately profitable. A Babcock test and a pair of scales will separate the precious from the vile if they are used with intelligence. The next process is tb secure, by the sale of these poor cows and the purchase of good ones, cows to equal, if possible, the! best. The heifer calves of these, best cows I should then be grown vith a view to dairy purposes. TheY- should be | fed a nitrogenous diet,|ehould not j be fattened as one wou|l steers for j market purposes. They |hen should be mated with a sire that inherits ! from his dam and gram dam milking qualities. * : ™ | By following in this t-ack a man j can make dairy cows of the raw material above menioned, and his success in the dairp- business depends on the knowledge and the intelligence with which he follows it. Wo know of no ither way, unless he has the moiey to go out and buy first-class dairy cows. He will find this, no natter how much money he lias, a^ very cli GFLcult business. Men Jvho have good dairy cows don't w^nt w> oeii them, and men wlio hay.i poor ones are not likely to proclaim that fact.