FIFTH ANNUAL YEAR BOOK — PART VI. 377 



DAIRYING FOR PROFIT. 



Henry Winter^ Jr.^ Before Carroll County Farmers' Institute. 



Does it pay to milk cows? It certainly does if everything connected with 

 the business is properly done and at the right time. In the first place you 

 must have some good cows and it does not make so much difference what 

 kind so they are good milkers. 



I find that Shorthorns are the best all purpose cows. They are not the 

 best milkers but there is something else to take into consideration. We must 

 raise cattle that will sell on the market and Shorthorns will sell any time and 

 at any age. Jerseys are the best milkers but it is a hard matter to sell the 

 calves . 



The milking should be done regularly morning and evening. I try to 

 have my cows fresh in the winter as butter brings a much better price then 

 than in the summer. I am getting twenty-seven cents a pound at the present 

 time in Chicago and after deducting the expense of shipping it clears nearly 

 twenty-five cents a pound but do not get as much in the summer, about 

 eighteen or twenty cents which of course is not clear gain. 



I make about forty dollars annually on each cow from butter and it cost 

 about twenty dollars a year per head for feed and pasture. I get from 

 eighteen to twenty dollars per head for steer calves when they are yearlings 

 and about fourteen to sixteen dollars for heifers at the same age. There is 

 also some value in the skim milk for pigs. 



So I think I am safe in saying that my cows clear thirty-five dollars 

 per head and still have the cows left, but of course this does not all come by 

 folding one's arms. As in everything else there is a great deal of work 

 about it. In order to get the best results from the milk it is necessary to 

 have a cream separator and then the cream must be handled right to make 

 good butter. 



It pays better to sell butter than to sell cream, that is after you work up 

 a trade, get the cash every week and pay for what you buy. I feed as a 

 ration in winter ground corn, oats and corn fodder, timothy or clover. At 

 the present time I am only milking six cows and they more than keep a 

 family of five. 



As a side issue I think it would pay any young farmer just starting out to 

 get a half dozen good milch cows or more and attend to them right. He 

 would find out at the end of the year that he would have a fatter pocket- 

 book and his good wife could dress better and set a better table. 



