KEEPING ONE COW. 113 



the milk, that no amount of feeding will draw from a poor cow. 

 In the autumn of 1877 I purchased a grade heifer reputed to be 

 seven-eighths Jersey and one-eighth Ayrshire. She had dropped 

 her first calf the spring previous, when only two years old. She 

 was then represented as yielding three quarts of milk per day, and 

 due to calve April the sixth. To account for the small yield of 

 milk, her owner said she had been kept on poor pasture and milked 

 by careless boys, who had not been particular to milk her clean. 



That she had been kept on poor pasture her appearance abun- 

 dantly confirmed. She came into my possession during the root 

 harvest, in November. I commenced by feeding to her three 

 bushels of rutabaga tops, or of beet tops, three pounds of corn 

 meal, together with all the dry hay she would eat each day. 



ONE TEAK'S EXPENSES AND RETURNS. 



The cost of keeping the cow from November first, 1877, to 

 June first, 1878, was as follows : 



150 pounds of Indian Meal, at $1 40 $ 2 10 



380 " Ship Stuff, at $1 35 513 



110 " Oil Meal, at $1 30 183 



4140 " Roots, at $8 00 per ton 16 56 



3392 " Hay, at $20 3393 



1 peck Salt ...." 25 



$59 73 

 The cost from June first to November first, 1878, was as follows : 



1530 pounds of Hay, at $20 $15 SO 



225 " Oil meal, at $1 30 292 



470 " Bran, at '$185 635 



Salt 25 



Service 200 



$26 82 



Making a total cost of $86 60 



for the year, counting nothing for the garden truck consumed 

 during the summer and autumn. This, with the exception of the 

 corn stalks, would have been consigned to the compost heap, had 

 she not eaten it, so that its only value to me was its value for com- 

 post. But allowing that for the purpose of feed it was equal in 

 value to its equivalent in hay, and that my winter ration of hay had 

 been continued through the year, her total cost of keeping would 

 have been, in round numbers, one hundred and four dollars. 



In the roots fed to her during the winter, were included the 

 waste and parings of vegetables used in a family of ten persons, 



