KEEPING A COW IN A VILLAGE STABLE.

BY ORANGE JUDD, FLUSHING, L. I.

A business man of New York, living in one of the neighboring villages, being troubled to get good milk for young children in his family, took our advice the latter part of the winter and, so to speak, went into the dairy business on his own account. The result will be instructive to tens of thousands of families in cities and villages. He has no pasture grounds, the only convenience being a roomy stall in a carriage barn, with opportunity for the cow to sun herself and take limited exercise in a small area, say fifteen by twenty feet, at the side of the barn, and this was seldom used. The stall is kept clean and neat, with fresh straw litter, and the cow has remained in excellent health and vigor. Chewing her cud and manufacturing milk seem to give all the exercise needed. Her feed has been bale hay, cut in a small hay-cutter, and mixed wet with corn-meal, bran, and shorts, with some uncooked potato parings, cabbage leaves, left over rice, oatmeal, etc., from the kitchen.

A laborer is paid one dollar a week to milk and feed and brush her night and morning, and take care of the stable, and he is allowed any excess of milk she gives over twelve quarts a day. He prepares a mess for her noon feed, which is given by one of the boys at school when he comes home to lunch. The cow is a grade, probably three-fourths Jersey and one-fourth common blood. Her milk is rich, yields abundant cream, and, as the owner’s family say, “Is worth fully double any milk we ever got from the best milk dealers.” One neighboring family gladly takes six quarts a day at seven cents a quart, and would willingly pay much more if it were asked, and other families would be happy to get some of it at ten cents a quart; but six quarts are kept for home use, and it is valued far above seven cents a quart, and worth more than that amount in the saving of butter in cooking, making puddings, etc. So it is a very low estimate to call the whole milk worth seven cents a quart. No one could deprive our business friend or his family of their good, home produced milk, if it cost ten or twelve cents a quart. An accurate account is kept of the feed; the man in charge orders at the feed store anything he desires for the cow, and it is all down on a “pass-book.” Here are the figures for one hundred days past:

THE COW’S DEBIT AND CREDIT FOR ONE HUNDRED DAYS.

Dr.

850 lbs. bale Hay, at $22 per ton $9.35

1,000 lbs. Corn Meal, at $1.35 per 100 lbs 13.50

400 lbs. Bran, at $1.30 per 100 lbs 5.20

200 lbs. Fine Feed, “Shorts,” at $1.55 per 100 lbs 3.10

20 bundles of bedding Straw, at 10c. 2.00

Paid man for care and milking, $1 per week 14.30

Total expenses for 100 days $47.45

Cr.

1,200 Quarts of best milk (12 quarts per day) at 7c. $84.00

Money profit in 100 days $36.55

Or, to put it in another way, the six hundred quarts sold actually brought in forty-two dollars cash, and the entire six hundred quarts used at home cost five dollars and forty-five cents. The cow cost, say, sixty-five dollars. The entire care, which was not paid in the surplus of milk above twelve quarts per day, is charged in the expenses above. The manure produced, if sold, would more than meet interest on the cost of cow, and any depreciation in value by increasing age. Allow the above average to be kept up only two hundred days in a year, and at the end of that time suppose the cow is sold for half price (thirty-two dollars and fifty cents), and a fresh one substituted, there would still be a gain of forty dollars and sixty cents for two hundred days, or for a year a profit of seventy-four dollars and ten cents.

With good feed the sixty-five dollar cow will keep up a full supply of milk at least twenty-six weeks, and then be worth forty dollars for continued milking and breeding. Sell her then and buy another fresh cow for sixty-five dollars—a loss of fifty dollars a year. The above liberal allowance of forty-seven dollars and forty-five cents for feed and care one hundred days, amounts to one hundred and seventy-three dollars and nineteen cents a year. Adding the loss of fifty dollars for purchasing two fresh cows, makes the total annual expense two hundred and twenty-three dollars and nineteen cents. This would make the supply of milk, twelve quarts a day (four thousand three hundred and eighty quarts), cost about five cents a quart, or not quite fifty-one cents for ten quarts. This is not an exaggerated estimate for a sixty-five dollar cow, renewed every twenty-six weeks. The feed and care may be very much less than the above forty-seven dollars and forty-five cents per hundred days, by saving all waste foods suitable for a cow, and by securing pasturage seven or eight months, and especially when a cow can be cared for by members of the family, thus saving fifty-two dollars a year. Taking the country as a whole, probably fifty dollars will ordinarily buy a cow that will, on fair feed, average ten to twelve quarts per day for the first six months after calving.