Oxford Democrat. [volume] (Paris, Me.) 1833-1933, 1904-11-22
The Calf in the Fall.
UPON ITS FEEDING AND CARE DEPENDS
ITS FUTURE USEFULNESS.

The calf, if it is of the feminine gender,
is mother to the COW, and for that mat
ter grandmother and great-granG mother
to numerous other cows and sons and
fathers of cows. Great virtue in COW
is created, fostered trait. After the
breeder has exhausted his wisdom in
bringing together combinations he be-
lieves will unite harmouiously, and the
calf comes into the world as mother Of
the COW, the work of the feeder has be-
gun, and this work must be grasped and
held to intelligently if much of the work
of the breeder is not nullified or at least
endangered.
Some one, some time, has said that
good dairy cows must have good dairy
form. Good dairy form must show its
hip bones, its ribs, its shoulder blades, a
lean and hungry jaw; there must be NO
suggestion or evidence of fat. To secure
this angularity of the mature animal,
the calf must never be allowed TO carry
flesh. The practical result of a lot OF
fed for fear it will take notion 10 fat
ten and not fulfill its ancestral obliga-
tions. Being underfed, it is functionally
undeveloped, and the function of con-
tinuously giving large quantity of rich
milk being, as have said, an artificial
one, it naturally follows that this func-
tion suffers first, and We have weaken
ing of the very qualities We are deSirous
of enlarging and more firmly establish
ing in our best dairy breeds.
1t is true that We generally find the
best cows are of lean and angular con-
formation, carrying no evidence of using
their food for personal adornment, but
their leanness, while doing good work,
is characteristic, an evidence of indi-
viduality, and not of starvation. There
fore, it is the height of folly to withhold
a sufficiency of good feed from the calf
for fear it will fail to grow into lean
COW.
Where there is one breeder, however,
who thus from design keeps his calves
underfed there are dozens who simply
neglect them. Someargue: 'My calves
are well bred. They are registered and
they trace in direct lines to great ances-
tral performers, and surely the mere
matter of little more or less feed and
comfortable environments will not alter
their destiny. They will grow up into
good cows, else what is the use in their
being well bred? When they get to be
cows then they shall have all the feed
they can eat. We haven't time to fool
with calves"
Others, again, do not seem to think
anything about it. These people have
conceived the idea that it is advisable to
raise few heifers into cows, and for this
purpose the calves from the supposedly
best cows are saved, and through sum-
mer's heat and pests, and winters pests
and cold, on scant pasture, in the lee OF
a straw stack, or in some bleak place
contemplatively chewing cornstalks,
they are permitted to grow up to the
dignity of cows; so that the men who
make the statistics tell us that the aver
age butter production of the cows in our
broad land is about l30 pounds year.
The man who starves the calf with a
promise of feeding it full when it be-
comes q COW very often does not know
what full feeding is, does not know what
balanced feeding is, and thepnfortunate
COW never has a chance to try to do the
work of good cow.
This pessimistic view of the shortcom-
ings of the COW men in the land is not a
pleasant one, and does not say much for
the thoroughness of them, but it is true
one. The average diShsartening cows we
have with us in fiocks and droveS. They
would be better if they had the chance.
For their lack Of chance their breeders
and feeders must be responsible.-Trib-
me Farmer.