FARMERS' MONTHLY OF HAMPSHIRE COUNTY 



FARMERS' MONTHLY 



PUBLISHED BY THE 



Hampshire County Trustees for Aid to 

 Agriculture 



STAFF 

 Rolnnd A. Payne, County Agent 

 Mildred W. Boiee, 



Home Demonstration Agent 

 Harold \V. Easinian, (Onnty Club Agent 

 Catherine l-iieey, Cleriv 

 Helen Clark, 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. 



"Notiee 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. 



I'rice, 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 



A PROSPEROUS NEW YEAR 



We once wished a rather crusty man 

 good morning and commented that it cer- 

 tainly was a fine morning. His reply 

 was: "They are all good mornings if we 

 live to see them". All of us have a lot 

 to be glad about at the beginning of the 

 New Year. It is up to us to do our part 

 to make 1927 the best year of our lives. 

 The sins of omission and of commission 

 of the past year should be clearly remem- 

 bered and the lessons taken to heart. 

 As a goal to work towards and to do our 

 best to reach for 1926, we could do no 

 better than to try to fill the four qualifi- 

 cations that Dr. Liberty Hyde Bailey 

 gives for a good farmer. These are: 

 First, the ability to make a full and 

 comfortable living from the land; Sec- 

 ond, to raise a family comfortably and 

 well ; Third, to be of good sei-vice to the 

 community; Fourth, to leave the farm 

 more productive than when you took it. 

 The Extension Service is ready and will- 

 ing to help you in reaching this goal and 

 to make this a Happy and a Prosperous 

 New Year. 



Trend of Fertilizer Nitrogen Prices Do^vn 



Continued from page 1. column .3 

 trogen independence. Japan is subsidiz- 

 ing its newly born air nitrogen industry, 

 Germany is doing the same for synthetic 

 ammonia, England is giving support to 

 sulfate of ammonia. We in this country 

 protect sulfate of ammonia by about five 

 dollars per ton, but sell quantities of the 

 product outside of the country. We also 

 have a vigorous propaganda looking to 

 the leasing of the Muscle Shoals plant in 

 in order that "low cost fertilizer" may be 

 manufactured. 



Oppoitunity for N. E. Farmers 



It would appear that cheap fertilizer 

 nitrogen, or for that matter cheap ferti- 

 lizer of any kind, must benefit New Eng- 

 land farmers. This, however, is true so 

 long as there is no corresponding decrease 

 in the price received for farm crops. If 

 low cost fertilizers lead to greatly in- 

 creased production, as they may, there 

 will be no paritcular benefit for New 

 England farmers or for farmers of any 

 section. This fact exposes the fallacy 

 in the argument of those who look to a 

 ■more profitable agriculture as the result 

 of a subsidized Muscle Shoals develop- 

 ment. Fully developed for fertilizer 

 manufacture, that plant will add equiva- 

 lent producing capacity of not less than 

 four million acres to an area already 

 sufficiently large to meet existing needs. 



Cheap fertilizer nitrogen is bound to 

 come. Not all farmers will gain from 

 the prospective change in fertilizer cost; 

 some will lose. It looks as though New 

 England farmers had as much to gain 

 and as little to lose as farmers in any 

 competing section. If so, then at once, 

 before lower priced fertilizer becomes an 

 actuality, we should learn how, on what 

 crops, under what conditions, and with 

 what precautions, these new nitrogenous 

 fertilizers may be utilized. 



NOVEMBER POULTRY SUMMARY 



The one hundred and sixty egg stand- 

 ard which we use as a yard .stick calls 

 for eight eggs per bird in November. 

 Sixteen of the thirty-three reports re- 

 ceived were above this standard, while 

 two were just a trifle below. The fol- 

 lowing is a list of the leading flocks for 

 this county for November: 



Nn. E.Kgs 

 Name Address Birds per Bird 



Mrs. R. P. Thayer, Hadley 84 18.63 



Mrs. A. J. Eldridgo, Amher.st 14.5 16.36 



P. J. Wheelock, Amherst 267 16.57 



H. I. Bean & Sons, Florence 240 14.25 



E. A. Broer, Hatfield 95 14.14 

 Geo. H. Ball, N. Amher.st 232 13.81 

 S. A. Clark, Williamsburg 40 13.52 



F. W. Rood, Southampton 570 13.25 

 Henry Witt, Belchertown 450 12.74 

 J. M. Lowe, Amherst 170 12.17 

 F. D. Steele, Cummington 300 12.09 

 John Bloom, Ware 375 12.05 



FEEDING DAIRY COWS 



Most Dairy Cows Not Fed Enough 

 to Make a Profit 



The reason that poor cows pay poor 

 wages to the men that own them can be 

 explained. Cows of the same size need 

 the same amount of feed to keep them 

 alive. This part" of the feed pays no- 

 profit. It is the large item of "overhead" 

 in the dairy business. Compare two 

 cows of the same size, one giving twen- 

 ty pounds of milk a day. the other giving 

 fifty pounds. The low producer uses 

 about 56 per cent of the feed she eats 

 to keep herself alive. The cow giving 

 fifty pounds a day uses only 33 per cent 

 of her feed for upkeep. This means that 

 the poor cow has only 44 per cent of her 

 feed available for production of milk 

 while the good cow has 67 per cent of her 

 feed available for production. This part 

 of the ration is where profits are found. 



One of the main differences between 

 the good and the poor producers is that 

 the good producer can handle far larger 

 amounts of feed. She has to to make milk. 

 If she is not given the opportunity of us- 

 ing this advantage she becomes a poor 

 producer. There are a lot of cows in this 

 county that are good but have no chance 

 to show their ability because they are not 

 properly fed. The herd can not be culled 

 and the unprofitable cows disposed of 

 until the cows all have a real chance to 

 show what they can do. 



Scanty Feeding Limits Production 



Cow te.st records show that it is com- 

 mon practice to feed cows more liberally 

 than production warrants the latter part 

 of the lactation period. This is made 

 necessary through failure to feed liber- 

 ally enough at the start of milking 

 period, when milk production is natural 

 and can most easily be obtained by lib- 

 eral feding. In Oiiio, records obtained 

 from thirty-three farms showed that in 

 these herds three times as much feed 

 above maintenance was being used to pro- 

 duce a unit of milk or fat during the 

 tenth month of lactation as during the 

 first month. This illustrates the folly of 

 light feeding in early lactation and of 

 over-feeding in the late lactation. 



Too few dairy farmers appreciate the 

 importance of good quality roughage in 

 getting high production. A cow can only 

 stretch herself around a certain amount 

 of roughage. The size of her stomach 

 is the limit. If the roughage is of poor 

 quality she will not make use of her 

 capacity unless forced to. This forcing 

 a cow to eat stuff she does not like is a 

 poor way to try to get a profit from her. 

 The better the quality of the roughage, 

 the more palatable it is, and the more 

 likely the cow is to eat to her full capa- 

 city. Eating to full capacity of rough- 

 age means that less grain has to be 



