aily in good hay, or
its equivalent. Indian-corn fodder, either green or cured, forms an
excellent and wholesome food at this age.

The heifer should not be pampered, nor yet poorly fed or half starved,
so as to receive a check in her growth. An abundant supply of good
healthy dairy food and milk will do all that is necessary up to the time
of her having her first calf--which should not ordinarily be till the
age of three years, though some choose to allow them to come in at two,
or a little over, on the ground that it early stimulates the secretion
of milk, and that this will increase the milking propensity through
life. This is undoubtedly the case, as a general rule; but greater
injury is at the same time done by checking the growth, unless the
heifer has been fed up to large size and full development from the
start--in which case she may perhaps take the bull at fifteen or
eighteen months without injury. Even if a heifer comes in at two years,
it is generally deemed desirable to let her run barren for the following
year, which will promote her growth and more perfect development.

The feeding which young stock often get is not such as is calculated to
make good-sized or valuable cattle of them. They are often fed on the
poorest of hay or straw through the winter, not infrequently left
exposed to cold, unprotected and unhoused, and thus stinted in their
growth. This is, surely, the very worst economy, or rather it is no
economy at all. Properly viewed, it is an extravagant wastefulness which
no farmer can afford. No animal develops its good points under such
treatment; and if the starving system is to be followed at all, it had
better be after the age of two or three years, when the animal's
constitution has attained the strength and vigor which may, possibly,
enable it to resist ill treatment.

To raise up first-rate milkers, it is absolutely necessary to feed on
dairy food even when they are young. No matter how fine the breed is, if
the calf is raised on poor, short feed, it will never be so good a
milker as if raised on better keeping; and hence, in dairy districts,
where calves are raised at all, they ought to be allowed the best
pasture during the summer, and good, sweet and wholesome food during
the winter.

POINTS OF FAT CATTLE.

Whatever theoretical objections may be raised against over-fed cattle,
and great as may be the attempts to disparage the mountains of fat,--as
highly-fed cattle are sometimes