398 REPORT OF THE BUKEAU OF ANIMAL INDUSTRY. 



quickly, and successfully performed, and with a small amount of 

 pain to the animal. . 



One reason for the large number of inferior dairy cows is un- 

 doubtedly the lack of attention paid to the rearing of dairy stock. 

 Very many dairymen do not pretend to raise their own cows, but 

 depend upon purchases to keep up their herds. The result of this is 

 that the cows are born and brought up on the rough, hilly, back 

 farms, by men who are not enterprising enough to make dairymen. 

 Beside the lack of attention to breeding, these animals are allowed 

 to subsist as best they can on coarse fodder until two years of age, 

 and when, having brought forth a calf, they are sold as milch cows 

 to some dairyman, it is no wonder that 3,000 pounds is about the 

 measure of their yearly capacity for milk. 



The better class of dairymen raise their own cows, and are partic- 

 ular as to their care and treatment from calfhood up. The young 

 calf is taken from the mother when about twenty-four hours old. 

 Many do not allow the calf to draw the milk from the cow but once, 

 and some do not allow the calf to suck at all. After the calf is 

 taken from the cow it is immediately taught to drink, and is fed new 

 milk from the cow for from four to six weeks. After that it is fed 

 sweet skimmed milk until it is from four to six months old. As soon 

 as it shows any inclination for dry food, which it will do when from 

 three to four weeks old, it is supplied with whole oats or wheat 

 bran in which a very little linseed-oil meal has been mixed, and a 

 little bright clover hay is placed where the calf may nibble at it. In 

 this way it is kept growing during its first summer. The feed for 

 the first winter is largely clover hay, if it is at hand, or if not, oat 

 straw or corn fodder, supplemented with a grain ration which is rich 

 in nitrogenous matters, as oats, barley, wheat bran, linseed or cot- 

 ton-seed-oil meal. During the second summer the young heifers 

 run on pasture without grain, and in the second winter if good coarse 

 fodder is at hand it is not usual to feed grain. 



The young heifer is expected to drop her first calf when two years 

 old, and regularly each year after that. Some of the best dairymen 

 vary this practice by having the first calf dropped when the heifer 

 is two and a half years old and the second when she is four years 

 old, thus giving a long period of milking between the first and second 

 calf. They claim that by a long period of milking after the first 

 calf the ' ' milking habit " is more firmly established and a better 

 dairy animal results. 



BUTTER MAKING. 



Below is given the report of the butter committee of one of the 

 "butter conferences" held by the New York State Dairymen's As- 

 sociation during the past year. It is given as the practice recom- 

 mended by a committee of the best butter makers of the State. 



It is important that the cows should be adapted to the purpose. The feed should 

 contain the proper elements for making butter. As proper feed we recommend a 

 mixture of bran, corn, oats, mill feed, and peas, with a small amount of linseed 

 and cotton-seed meal. This feed should be mixed in proper proportions. The cows 

 should be fed and milked with regularity. The water should be pure, the stables well 

 ventilated, the cows kept clean, and the most careful and painstaking care had in all 

 places for cleanliness. To leave the milk-pails unwashed over night, even though 

 no dirt is added, and they may be as clean apparently as they were when used the 

 night before, is a dangerous mistake. During the night incipient putrefaction may 

 take place in the milk left over, and these germs will affect the milk put in them, 

 and its produce. There is something more than cleanliness required in the dairy 



