s of their food than by a change of
the form in which it is given. A cow, kept through the winter on mere
straw, will cease to give milk; and, when fed in spring on green forage,
will give a fair quantity of milk. But she owes the cessation and
restoration of the secretion, respectively, to the diminution and
increase of her nourishment, and not at all to the change of form, or of
outward substance in which the nutriment is administered. Let cows
receive through winter nearly as large a proportion of nutritive matter
as is contained in the clover, lucerne, and fresh grass which they eat
in summer, and, no matter in what precise substance or mixture that
matter be contained, they will yield a winter's produce of milk quite as
rich in caseine and butyraceous ingredients as the summer's produce, and
far more ample in quantity than almost any dairyman with old-fashioned
notions would imagine to be possible. The great practical error on this
subject consists, not in giving wrong kinds of food, but in not so
proportioning and preparing it as to render an average ration of it
equally rich in the elements of nutrition, and especially in nitrogenous
elements, as an average ration of the green and succulent food of
summer.

We keep too much stock for the quantity of good and nutritious food
which we have for it; and the consequence is, that cows are, in nine
cases out of ten, poorly wintered, and come out in the spring weakened,
if not, indeed, positively diseased, and a long time is required to
bring them into a condition to yield a generous quantity of milk.

It is a hard struggle for a cow reduced in flesh and in blood to fill up
the wasted system with the food which would otherwise have gone to the
secretion of milk; but, if she is well fed, well housed, well littered,
and well supplied with pure, fresh water, and with roots, or other
_moist_ food, and properly treated to the luxury of a frequent carding,
and constant kindness, she comes out ready to commence the manufacture
of milk under favorable circumstances.

_Keep the cows constantly in good condition_, ought, therefore, to be
the motto of every dairy farmer, posted up over the barn, and on and
over the stalls, and over the milk-room, and repeated to the boys
whenever there is danger of forgetting it. It is the great secret of
success; and the difference between success and failure turns upon it.
Cows in milk require more food in proportion to their size and weight
t