90 KEEPING OSE COW. 



YEAR'S RESULTS. 



To show what I have accomplished by it, I will give an ac- 

 count of the products of my cow " Polly," for the year ending 

 April first, 1880, together with a statement of the actual expenses 

 of her keeping. Besides what was used in a family of four, 

 I have sold one hundred and sixty-nine pounds of butter, at an 

 average of twenty cents per pound, which amounts to thirty-three 

 dollars and eighty cents ; eight hundred and twenty-eight quarts 

 of milk, at six cents per quart, forty-nine dollars and sixty-eight 

 cents; eighteen quarts of butter-milk, at three cents per quart, 

 fifty-four cents; eleven quarts of sour milk, at two cents, twenty- 

 two cents; one calf, four days old, one dollar and seventy five 

 cents; total, eighty-five dollars and ninety-nine cents. To this 

 I may add one hundred and twenty pounds of butter consumed 

 at home, twenty-four dollars, and about two hundred and thirty 

 quarts of milk, worth thirteen dollars and eighty cents ; making in 

 all, one hundred and twenty-three dollars and seventy-nine cents. 

 The cost of feed was as follows : One thousand pounds bran, nine 

 dollars and sixty cents ; one thousand pounds com meal, eleven 

 dollars and fifty cents ; seven hundred and fifty pounds of oat- 

 meal, nine dollars and eighty five cents ; three thousand pounds 

 clover hay, thirteen dollars and fifty-cents; two hundred pounds 

 rye straw, one dollar and fifty cents; muck, two dollars; total, 

 forty -seven dollars and ninety-five cents; leaving a balance of 

 seventy-five dollars and eighty-four cents. As I keep a horse, I 

 have the necessary tools for cultivating the land myself, I have 

 not added the cost of cultivation as an item in the expense col- 

 umn, and perhaps it may be said that I should also have added 

 interest on land and buildings. As an offset to these, I would call 

 attention to the valuable pile of manure, and furthermore I have 

 made no account of a large amount of skim-milk, on which I 

 raised a pig. This pig was fed nothing but sour milk, and a 

 very few small potatoes, until about four weeks prior to butcher- 

 ing, when he was " finished off " on corn meal. He weighed, after 

 being dressed, December twenty-eighth, two hundred and seventy- 

 eight pounds. The profits from this cow would undoubtedly have 

 been larger had I sold all the milk, instead of making butter out 

 of a part of it, but I did not make mere profit my sole object in 

 the matter. I wished to supply my family with those necessary 

 luxuries which, I beheve, are rendered even sweeter by the con- 

 sciousness of their being the products of our own labor. The 



