FARMERS' MONTHLY OF HAMPSHIRE COUNTY 



FARMERS' MONTHLY 



PUBLISHED BY THE 



Hampshire County Trustees for Aid to 

 Agriculture 



I largest amount of fat for the month : 



STAFF 

 Roland A. Payne, County Agent 

 Mildred W. Boice, 



Home Demonstration Agent 

 Xorninn F. Whippen, County Club Agent 

 Mary Dimond, Clerk 

 Mary Sullivan, Asst. Clerk 



Office First National Bank Building 



Northampton, Mass. 

 Entered as second class matter Nov. 9, 

 1915, at the Post Office at Northampton, 

 Massachusetts, under the Act of March 

 8. 1879. 



"IVotice of Entry" 

 "Acceptance for mailing: at special rate 

 of postage provided for in section 1103, 

 Act of October 3, 1917. Authorized Oc- 

 tober 31, 1917. 



Price, 50 cents a year 



Officers of the Trustees 



Charles E. Clark, President 

 Charles W. Wade, Vice-President 

 Warren M. King, Treasurer 

 Roland A. Payne, Secretary 



Trustees for County Aid to Agriculture 



Edwin B. Clapp, Easthampton 



Charles E. Clark, Leeds 



Clarence E. Hodgkins, Northampton 



Milton S. Howes, Cummington 



Mrs. Clifton Johnson, Hadley 



Warren M. King, Northampton 



Charles W. Wade, Hatfield 



W. H. Atkins, Amherst 



L. L. Campbell, Northampton 



REGARDING SUBSCRIPTIONS 



The Extension Service makes but one 

 direct appeal to the people of this county 

 for financial support. This is through 

 subscriptions to the Farmer's Monthly. 

 It is for only fifty cents per year. This 

 is a small sum for the individual yet if 

 all subscribers would send it in the total 

 would make a respectable sum. In fact 

 our yearly budget is figured so closely 

 that the way subscriptions come in deter- 

 mines whether we have sufficient funds 

 to carry us through the year or not. 



Bills for the 1926 subscriptions have 

 been sent out recently. The response has 

 been good but it should have been better. 

 You can help us materially by looking up 

 that bill and by sending your sub.scription 

 in promptly if you have not done so al- 

 ready. 



MARCH COW TEST REPORT 



The March report of the Hampshire 

 County Cow Testing Association shows 

 that there were 688 cows on test. Thir- 

 teen of these cows made over two pounds 

 of butter fat during the month. The fol- 

 lowing is a list of the cows giving the 



Lbs. Milk 

 1230 

 1140 

 1106 

 1059 

 1035 



1021 

 1013 



times. 



Fourteen of the forty-eight herds 

 averaged over 900 lbs of milk per cow 

 during March. The following is a list of 

 the herds with the highest average milk 

 production per cow : 



Owner Address No. Cows 



Pelissier Bros., Hadley 6 

 E. P. West, Hadley 27 



J. G. Cook, Hadley 9 



M. S. Howes, Cum'ton 12 

 Bisbee Bros., Chesterfield 12 

 A. D. Montag-ue, 



Westhampton 13 



E. T. Clark, Granby 22 



Twenty one of the herds averaged over 

 thirty pounds of fat per cow in March. 

 The following are the leading herds in 

 fat per cow : 



Owner Address N 



Pelissier Bros., Hadley 

 E. P. West, Hadley 

 Ellis Harlow, Amherst 

 M. S. Howes, Cum'ton 

 J. G. Cook, Hadley 

 E. T. Clark, Granby 

 D. R. Pomeroy, Amherst 

 A. D. Montague, West'ton 13 



At the end of the month Henry Phin- 

 ney, who has been doing the testing on 

 the west side of the Connecticut River, 

 resigned to take a position as farm 

 manager for R. S. Bracewell in South 

 Hadley. John Vaber of Lee has been 

 hired to take this route. Mr. Vaber 

 graduated from the M. A. C. two-year 

 course two years ago and has experience 

 in testing for advanced registry. 



The ability of dairy cows to absorb 

 mineral supplements is yet to be demon- 

 strated. The best method of meeting the 

 problem of mineral deficiency is by grow- 

 ing and feeding more legumes. This 

 necessitates better fertilization of our 

 soils. 



Better control of the codling moth may 

 be secured by timing the sprays to the 

 moth rather to the tree or other seasonal 

 calendar. — Prof. Boui~ne, M. A. C. 



TOO MUCH PROTEIN 



Lack of Total Digestible Nutrients Often 

 Limits Milk Production 



Preliminary experiments carried on by 

 the Ohio Experiment Station seem to in- 

 dicate that dairymen have put too much 

 faith in high protein feeds. They state 

 that "Our results support the conten- 

 tion that the older standards call for 



unnecessarily high amounts of protein; 

 that the actual maintenance requirement 

 is less than prescribed in these standards; 

 that above this maintenance requirement 

 an amount of digestible protein only 

 slightly greater than the protein content 

 cf the milk appears to be adequate; and 

 that beyond this point, production seems 

 to follow "total digestible nutrients". . . . 

 rather than protein content. The results 

 of fifty-one full lactation periods on fully 

 controlled feeding arranged by groups ac- 

 cording to protein content of the rations, 

 which covered a range of 8 1/3 percent 

 to 33 1/3 percent, failed to show any 

 marked or consistent effect of high pro- 

 tein content in increasing the productive 

 efficiency of the ration. Variety in the 

 ration is thought to have had an im- 

 portant bearing on the favorable results 

 secured with rations so low in protein. 

 These results, if confirmed by later in- 

 vestigation, should be of great economic 

 significance." 



"If it should be confirmed that less 

 protein is absolutely necessary than 

 formerly supposed and that production is 

 more directly dependent on the consump- 

 tion of total digestible nutrients. . . than 

 on the consumption of large amounts of 

 protein, farmers will be more nearly in- 

 dependent of expensive purchased dairy 

 feed. The dairyman who can grow 

 roughage (leg-ume hay and silage) of the 

 highest quality and palatability and who 

 feeds liberally of these and of a mixture 

 of locally-grown grains and wheat 

 bran, . . . should be able to reduce very 

 materially the customary amount of 

 purchased protein concentrates without 

 reduction in the amount of production. 

 Indeed, our results seem to indicate that 

 even the non-leguminous roughages, if 

 palatable and accompanied by a liberal 

 feeding of the common g-rains, are 

 capable of yielding good results. Al- 

 though the protein content of feeds is an 

 important consideration, especially in the 

 case of hays where protein content and 

 palatability seem to run nearly parallel, 

 our results show that perhaps too much 

 attention has been focused on protein and 

 not sufficient attention on palatability, 

 liberal feeding and, possibly, other fac- 

 tors." 



The results obtained in this experiment 

 agree with the results obtained by practi- 

 cal dairymen in this county. This is 

 shown by the fact that a certain 24 per- 

 cent grain was very popular a few years 

 ago. One year's trial convinced many 



