FACTS REFUTE PREJUDICE.

BY D. B. CHAPMAN, NEW LONDON, CT.

When I was a boy it was the prevailing opinion in the section of country where I was raised, that it was better that a cow should be rather thin in flesh at the time of calving than otherwise. There was but very little grain fed in winter, to any stock in that section, except to working oxen. Cows in milk were fed hay, while dry cows, and young stock, were fed on straw or corn stalks. The result was that at the time of calving, cows were generally thin enough to conform to the popular idea of a proper condition. Cows giving a large yield of milk were scarce enough in those days, and it was very seldom that you would meet one that would yield ten quarts of milk per day (beer measure), during the flush of feed. My faith in the theory, that a cow should be thin in flesh at the time of calving, received a very severe shock, very soon after I became the owner of one, and experience and observation have only served to confirm my doubts of its correctness.

In the spring of 1848, I purchased my first cow. I came across her some twenty miles from home. She had just calved, and displayed a very large udder. Her owner warranted her to give twelve quarts of milk per day, and to be, in every respect, a good family cow. The cow suited my fancy in every particular, save one, she was too fat. But having nine points in her favor, I did not feel disposed to forego her purchase for the want of the tenth. When I drove her home, the adverse criticism on her was immense, solely on account of her condition. Said an old farmer to me: “That is a fancy cow, just suited for some rich man, who can afford to indulge his fancy, and expend for her keeping, twice as much as the value of her milk. You will find that you have got to keep her in just the condition that she is now in, or you will get no milk. If you do not keep her in this condition, you will find she will shrink in milk, before she shrinks in flesh, and she won’t give half as much, on the same keeping, as she would if she was no fatter than my cows.”

I must own, that after listening to this and that criticism in the same strain, I felt a little sick of my bargain, and would have willingly sold her at a discount, but no purchaser appearing, I concluded to make the best of a bad bargain.

My purchase was made April second. Twelve hundred pounds of hay furnished her with feed until the eighteenth of May. I then hired a pasture, for fifteen dollars, where I kept her until November, when I sold her.

I found that, although the cow lost flesh under my keeping, and a good deal of it too, she gave quite as much milk as she was recommended to give, and at the time she was sold, her account stood as follows, no account having been made of the milk used in the family, then consisting of three persons:

Cr.

By sale of Milk, at 6 cents per quart $74.20

do. Calf 5.00

do. Cow, November 1 18.00

$97.20

Dr.

To purchase, April 2d $35.00

do. Hay 12.00

do. Service 0.50

do. Pasture 15.00

$62.50

Net Profit $34.70

I was so well pleased with this result, notwithstanding the unfavorable circumstance of having started with a fat cow, that the next spring I repurchased her at the same price paid the spring previous. But instead of a fat cow then, she was thin enough to afford a good study of animal anatomy. She had had no other feed than corn stalks, for the two months that she had been dry, and was as much thinner than when I sold her; as she was at that time thinner than when I first bought her. In fact, she had been subjected to a gradual system of depletion for a year.

I sold her on the first of October, following, when her account stood as follows, no account having been made of the milk used in the family, numbering three persons, as before:

Dr.

To purchase $35.00

Hay 12.00

Service 0.50

Meal 6.00

Pasture, the same as the previous year 15.00

$68.50

Cr.

By sale of Milk, at 6 cents per quart $51.30

do. Calf, two weeks old 3.00

do. Cow, October 1 12.00

$66.30

Loss $2.20

This difference in profit was occasioned solely by the difference of the yield of her milk in the two seasons. The yield for the second season averaged full three quarts per day less than the first, and, at the same time, the quality of the milk was deteriorated in the same proportion as the quantity.

This was my first lesson, acquired by experience. At the same time, I learned another by observation. The two combined added materially to my stock of knowledge.

A neighbor of mine, a German, in the month of January, 1849, purchased a heifer, three years of age the coming spring. She had been kept poor from the time she was weaned. At two years of age she had dropped her first calf, and through her first season of milk had given but little promise as a milker. She had just been dried when he purchased her, and he, without any previous knowledge of the care of cows, commenced feeding her according to his instincts. He fed her six quarts of meal per day, in addition to all the hay she would eat. This system of feeding continued until about the twenty-fifth of March, when she calved. At the time of calving she was in better condition than much of the beef sold in our markets.

About the same time that his cow calved I repurchased mine. The feed of the two, thereafter, was very nearly alike, except that his cow had a feed of six quarts of meal per day, while mine had only two. His fat cow doubled on the quantity of milk that she had given the year before, when she came in poor, while my poor cow, with extra feed, fell short more than a third of her yield of the year before, when she came in, in good condition.

At that time I do not remember to have ever seen a work on chemistry, and knew nothing of its application; but the knowledge acquired, led to the formation of a theory in my mind, on which I have since acted, and which, I believe, has a scientific basis, to wit: “The fat laid on the body of an in-calf cow, is a store from which nature draws a large portion of the material which increases and enriches the subsequent flow of milk—a store from which she, by legitimate processes, produces oleo-stearine in the shape of butter.”

Acting upon this theory, I have endeavored to apportion to my cows a uniform daily ration, occasionally varying the material, which, although it may not sustain the cow in full flesh during the greatest flow of milk, seems to renew it during the period of the lesser flow, and render them in good condition at the time of calving. This system of uniform feeding, to my mind, pays better than it does to feed heavily while in milk, and then lightly when dry, because it furnishes a large resource of fat, on which to draw at a time when to consume sufficient food to sustain the entire flow of milk capable of being produced, might imperil health; and I feel quite sure that a certain richness is thereby imparted to the milk, that no amount of feeding will draw from a poor cow. In the autumn of 1877 I purchased a grade heifer reputed to be seven-eighths Jersey and one-eighth Ayrshire. She had dropped her first calf the spring previous, when only two years old. She was then represented as yielding three quarts of milk per day, and due to calve April the sixth. To account for the small yield of milk, her owner said she had been kept on poor pasture and milked by careless boys, who had not been particular to milk her clean.

That she had been kept on poor pasture her appearance abundantly confirmed. She came into my possession during the root harvest, in November. I commenced by feeding to her three bushels of rutabaga tops, or of beet tops, three pounds of corn meal, together with all the dry hay she would eat each day.

ONE YEAR’S EXPENSES AND RETURNS.

The cost of keeping the cow from November first, 1877, to June first, 1878, was as follows:

150 pounds of Indian Meal, at $1.40 $ 2.10

380 ” Ship Stuff, at $1.35 5.13

110 ” Oil Meal, at $1.30 1.82

4140 ” Roots, at $8.00 per ton 16.56

3392 ” Hay, at $20 33.92

1 peck Salt 0.25

$59.78

The cost from June first to November first, 1878, was as follows:

1530 pounds of Hay, at $20 $15.30

225 ” Oil meal, at $1.30 2.92

470 ” Bran, at $1.35 6.35

Salt 0.25

Service 2.00

$26.82

Making a total cost of $86.60

for the year, counting nothing for the garden truck consumed during the summer and autumn. This, with the exception of the corn stalks, would have been consigned to the compost heap, had she not eaten it, so that its only value to me was its value for compost. But allowing that for the purpose of feed it was equal in value to its equivalent in hay, and that my winter ration of hay had been continued through the year, her total cost of keeping would have been, in round numbers, one hundred and four dollars.

In the roots fed to her during the winter, were included the waste and parings of vegetables used in a family of ten persons, which was sometimes no inconsiderable item. These were always thrown into the feed basket, and just enough fresh roots sliced to make the required weight. After the roots stored in the cellar were exhausted no account was made of this item. I make this statement simply to show that every item of feed was entered at its full value, into the cost of the keeping.

Now for the other side. Although the cow was quite thin when I bought her, yet under this system of care and feeding, she was estimated to have gained two hundred pounds in weight by the time she calved, on the fifteenth of April, 1878, and of this weight she had not lost more than seventy-five pounds at the end of the year, November first. When I bought her she was represented as yielding three quarts of milk per day. Her yield of milk weighed on the first day exactly five and three-quarter pounds. At the end of three weeks, it had increased to eleven pounds per day, and continued at this figure with scarcely any interruption until the first of February. It then rapidly fell off, until by the twenty-fifth of that month, she yielded only seven pounds per day. I then commenced milking her once a day, and the milking on the fourth day after weighed only four and a half pounds. I continued milking her until the fifteenth of March, when I stopped, the weight of the last milking being only one and three-quarter pounds. On the tenth or April she calved. I let her calf suckle her until it was four weeks old, when it was sold for veal. On the seventh of May her yield of milk was twenty-two pounds. It averaged about that figure until she got a full feed of pea vines in June, when it ran up as high as twenty-seven pounds. In July it fell off some, and continued to run from twenty to twenty-three pounds until the middle of August. It then gradually diminished to the first of November, at which time she was yielding thirteen pounds of milk per day. I find, by referring to my diary, that her total yield of milk from the time I purchased her until she calved, was one thousand and sixty-seven pounds, equal to four hundred and eighty-four quarts, reckoning thirty-four ounces to the quart. Milk was then selling, in this vicinity, at six cents per quart, making a value of twenty-six dollars and four cents.

From the time she calved until the first of November, her total yield of milk was three thousand seven hundred and seventy-seven pounds, equal to one thousand seven hundred and seventy-seven quarts, at five cents, eighty-eight dollars and eighty-five cents; sale of calf, six dollars and fifty-cents; making a net profit of seventeen dollars and thirty-nine cents, to say nothing of the growth of the cow, or the value of her manure, which was an ample compensation for the care of keeping.

Had I estimated the value of her milk at the retail price, I should add one cent per quart for summer, and two cents per quart for winter. The next year this same cow, with the increase of the equivalent of one and a half pounds of meal per day, to allow for her increased growth, and a slight deviation in the matter of feed during the summer, whereby she obtained more green food, of which I shall speak hereafter, increased her profit almost forty per cent.

GARGET.

Of one thing I am very careful, and that is, not to allow the inflowing milk, previous to calving, to harden in the udder, and in all my long experience, in owning cows, I have never had a case of garget. When I was a boy about twelve years of age, my father purchased a very large milker for those days. I noticed that the right hind quarter of her udder was much smaller than the other, and yielded a correspondingly less quantity of milk. After she had been dried off, and the time approached for her to calve, I observed that this same quarter of her udder became very much more distended than the others. Her whole udder was very much distended, but this quarter excessively so. As her period of calving was delayed, and her udder became more inflamed, producing, evidently, great pain to the cow, I asked the privilege of milking her, and was denied. At the same time I was given to understand that it was the worst possible thing that could be done for the cow; that it was necessary that her udder should become thus distended, in order to give it the capacity to contain the flow of milk after calving; that should she be milked before calving, the yield after calving would be very much lessened, etc. By the time she calved, her udder was one indurated mass, and that particular quarter of it so much inflamed that she could not bear to have the calf touch it. In the course of time, however, by copious applications of cold water, and various liniments, the inflammation was reduced, but that particular section of the udder, which had been sufficiently distended to hold her whole yield, was shrunken to its old dimensions, and was no larger than when I first saw her. When the time approached for her to drop her next calf, I took the responsibility of clandestinely milking her, so that when she calved there was no inflamed udder, there was no fussing with liniments. Its four quarters were now evenly developed; the only difference was the former shrunken quarter was larger, if anything, than the others, and, throughout the season, the yield of milk, from the same keeping, was essentially increased over the yield of the previous year. I never disclosed the secret, however, until I was grown up. But I acquired a very useful lesson which I applied in my practice long before the theory that it was best to milk a cow previous to calving was generally adopted by owners around me.

TETHERING.

A professional friend of mine is the owner of three horses and two imported cows, all of which are kept in very high condition. He informs me that for several years, with the exception of one year, two and one half acres of land have furnished all the hay consumed by the five animals, together with pasturage for one cow; the other cow being dry during the summer, is pastured in the country. His land is naturally good grass land, being moist, well drained, and perfectly smooth. The apparatus for tethering his cow, when at pasture, consists of a pole or joist, the short end of which is weighted, swiveled on an iron upright, standing, when in position, about four feet above the ground, giving the apparatus the appearance of a model of an old-fashioned well sweep. The halter being attached to the upper end, is always above her back while feeding. This arrangement allows the cow the range of a circuit thirty feet in diameter. The upright is removed to the arc of the circle at morning and noon. In this manner she traverses the length of the lot, four hundred feet, in fourteen days, when she is brought back to the starting point, to repeat the journey again. In this manner, twelve thousand feet of land is made to furnish pasturage for one cow during the entire summer, and besides this, she has no feed whatever. The cow is always in good condition, and the ground never appears very closely cropped, and I have no doubt that were she restricted to one quarter of an acre, or ten thousand eight hundred and ninety feet, she would still be better fed than most cows that are at pasture. The droppings of the cow are daily removed from this range, so that she always has a clean feeding ground. All the manure made by the five animals is annually returned to this lot, and, in addition, the owner informs me, once in three years he gives it a dressing of a ton of ground bone.

PEARL MILLET.

After reading of Mr. Peter Henderson’s experiment with Pearl Millet, as described in the “American Agriculturist,” I determined to make a trial with it myself. Accordingly, last year, I sowed an area of eighteen square rods with it, in drills, fourteen inches apart; six rods were set apart to be cut and dried for fodder. The product of the other twelve rods was fed green. On the twentieth of June, a month after sowing, the growth measured about three feet in hight. On this date we commenced cutting it, and feeding to the cow all she would eat. She ate it with a greater apparent relish than any other green feed that had been given her. The cutting was finished on the twenty-fifth of July, on which day the last cutting measured about four feet in hight. The second cutting was commenced on the twenty-seventh of July, and finished on the twenty-second of August, the growth averaging nearly three and a half feet. The third cutting was commenced on the twenty-third and finished on the thirty-first of August. The growth was about two feet at the beginning of the cutting, but not more than ten inches at the finish. The fourth and last cutting was commenced on the sixteenth, and finished on the twenty-first of September, after which the ground appeared exhausted, and no further growth was made. The twelve rods cut and fed green yielded feed sufficient for seventy-five days, aside from her usual ration of bran or oil meal, while the product from the six rods, cut and fed dry, only two cuttings being made, was sufficient to feed her for thirty-four days, making a total feed for one hundred and nine days, from eighteen rods of ground; at which rate it would require sixty and one-quarter rods of ground to furnish forage for a year.

AN EXCELLENT COMPOST.

The only stable manure I use on my crops is that made by my cow. All my other fertilizers are artificially produced. In the course of the year, in prosecuting my regular business, I render some two hundred thousand pounds of tallow. This is all done by boiling it with sulphuric acid. The acid attacks and decomposes the animal tissue, leaving the rendered tallow floating on its surface. A part of the dissolved animal tissue, together with the bones that are sometimes smuggled in with the rough fat, settles to the bottom of the tanks, and a part remains dissolved in the acid. This spent acid, together with the deposit in the bottom of the tanks, is the source of all my nitrogen, except what may be in the manure from the cow, as well as a portion of my phosphorous. I have occasion to use considerable of the potash of commerce in some of my manufactures. For my land, I make of this a saturated solution, and then dry it, by stirring into it a mixture of equal parts of ground plaster and sifted coal ashes. This, in a few days, becomes sulphate of potash, lime, and coal ashes, at least I judge that it does, for it loses all its causticity.

In preparing my fertilizers, I mix the product of my tanks with loam, near the place to be planted; this, in the spring, is dug over and mixed with the manure from the stable. The effect of this mixing is to make the manure very fine in a very short time. After plowing, this compost is spread upon the land, and harrowed in. I then follow with ground bone, which costs me, delivered at my place, bolted, twenty-five dollars per ton, at the rate of twelve hundred pounds to the acre, and with the potash mixture, at the rate of two hundred and forty pounds to the acre, which is also harrowed in. In distributing the potash, I distribute more of it where I intend to plant peas or potatoes, and less where I intend to plant corn, squashes, and turnips. In distributing the bone, I reverse this. It is on a light, sandy loam, fertilized in this manner, with an excess of nitrogen, no doubt, that I expect, the coming summer, to raise enough feed for a cow on less than half an acre of ground. The land on which my experiment was tried last year was a turned sod that had had no manure of any kind for more than ten years. This year it will be tried on land that was manured as above last year.