320 Bureau of Farmers' Institutes. 



A\'liic-li is tlio more profltablo, winter or summer dalrjingV 



Mr. Garlock. — Winter dairying is the more profitable, provided 

 we can get a factory that runs through the winter, but it will not 

 pay if but one or two of us go into it. 



Mr. Converse. — There are 10 cheese and butter factories in the 

 town of Ellisburgh, Jetferson county, six of which have not closed 

 their doors or banked their fires during the past four years. Our 

 best dairymen discovered some time ago that they could not af- 

 ford to feed dry cow boarders four months in winter, with nothing 

 to show for it when spring came but experience and scrub cow 

 society. So they began winter dairying. With good clean quar- 

 ters, good care, good cows, good corn ensilage, some clover hay, 

 wheat bran and oats and peas, we find 'that we can make as fine 

 butter in winter as in summer, provided the milk is properly cared 

 for and the butter is well made. We have also found that a good 

 dairy cow which drops her calf, say November 1st, will give 1,000 

 pounds more milk during the year than she will when she freshens 

 March 1st. Besides, the price of milk is from 20 to 50 cents 

 a hundred pounds liigher in winter than in summer. Another 

 point, if cows are to go dry during a certain season of the year, 

 it will be much more profitable for them to do so when .the hot 

 weather, short pasture and flies are here. 



Mr. Cook. — Another point, in winter there is not any other 

 farm work crowding, so that one can give more care and atten- 

 tion to the cows than in summer. But if best results from winter 

 dairying are reached, we must have cows come fresh in the fall, 

 and they should be good ones, by which I mean cows that will 

 give not less than 5,000 pounds of milk— they should give 6,000 

 or 7,000 pounds— during the year, and we should be provided 

 with milk-producing foods, such as Mr. Converse has named, 

 while all the environment of the stable should be of the best 

 With such cows and such conditions obtaining, if one is so situ- 

 ated that he can draw his milk to a first-class creamery or cheese 

 factory where butter is made in winter, there is no disputing 

 the fact that winter dairying pays better than does that of sum- 

 mer. 



