Spring  Poor  and  Spring  Fat. 
AS  YK  START,  SO  SHALL  YE  FINISH. 
“  So  comes  a  reckoning  when  the  banquet's  o’er, 
The  dreadful  reckoning,  and  men  smile  no  more." 
^  our  attention  is  called  to  the  two  pictures  on  this 
page.  They  are  as  true  as  the  sunlight  can  make 
them.  The  sunlight  was  merciful  and  gave  the  poor 
old  white  cow  a  better  appearance  than  she  really  has. 
Photographs  cannot  lie  ;  whatever  comes 
into  the  camera  has  to  come  out  of  it. 
These  photographs  have  not  been  touched 
up  or  changed.  They  were  taken  by  a 
student  at  Cornell  and  represent  two  cows 
just  as  they  were  when  turned  out  to  pas¬ 
ture  this  spring.  They  are  just  about  of 
the  same  age  and  both  calved  last  spring, 
the  black  cow  in  February  and  the  white 
one  in  March.  At  the  time  the  pictures 
were  taken  the  white  cow  gave  less  than 
10  pounds  of  milk  per  day  and  the  black 
gave  over  40  pounds.  The  black  cow  be¬ 
longs  to  the  Cornell  herd  and  is  one  of  20 
about  equally  good.  She  was  raised  on  the 
farm,  her  mother  and  father  were  well 
known  animals  and  her  education  and 
training  for  the  pail  have  been  perfect. 
The  Cause  of  Spring  Poverty. 
There  is  a  great  big  sermon  to  every 
dairyman  in  these  pictures.  Think  of  this 
poor,  bony,  manure-patched  wretch  with 
hardly  strength  enough  to  keep  on  her 
feet,  turned  out  on  a  mass  of  weeds  and 
briars  and  expected  to  make  milk  fit  for 
human  beings  to  drink.  Talk  about  mak¬ 
ing  bricks  without  straw,  this  poor  thing 
has  a  bigger  job  than  that  ahead  of  her. 
We  know  just  where  she  came  from.  Her  winter 
has  been  worse  than  that  of  an  eskimo  crouching 
over  his  blubber  lamp  in  a  snow  house.  She  has  stood 
all  day  with  her  back  arched  like  a  rainbow,  on  the 
warm  side  of  a  straw  stack  whose  spoiled  and  rotten 
contents  made  up  two-thirds  of  her  food.  There  she 
stood  through  the  wet  and  cold— now  drenched  and 
now  frozen — with  not  enough  food  in  her  stomach  to 
make  an  honest  cud — silently  con¬ 
templating  the  advertisement  of 
somebody’s  “stomach  bitters”  or 
chewing  tobacco  that  some  wander¬ 
ing  genius  had  painted  on  the  old 
barn. 
At  night  they  have  di’iven  her  into 
the  rattle-trap  of  a  barn  and  chained 
her  in  a  sour,  ill-smelling  place.  The 
wind  whistled  through  the  cracks 
and  the  snow  drifted  over  her. 
When,  completely  exhausted,  she  lay 
down  to  rest,  the  manure  froze  her 
to  the  floor  and  held  her  there  till 
the  farmer  came  and  helped  her  up 
with  his  boot  Eaten  alive  by  lice, 
frozen,  beaten,  drenched,  fed  on  ice 
water,  straw,  stalks  and  air,  hide¬ 
bound  and  ‘hollow-horned,”  they 
now  turn  the  old  thing  out  to  pas¬ 
ture  and  curse  her  because  she  won’t 
help  make  “  farming  pay!”  Is  the 
picture  over-drawn  ?  No,  No  !  There 
is  the  photograph  before  you.  It  is 
nothing  on  earth  but  cruel  and  in¬ 
human  treatment  that  has  uncovered  those  old  bones 
and  sent  the  poor  thing  out  to  pasture  almost  too 
feeble  to  eat.  Spring  poor  !  Think  of  poverty,  of 
strength  and  energy  at  the  season  of  new  life  when  all 
nature  is  growing  and  thriving.  This  old  cow  will 
spend  the  summer  feebly  struggling  back  to  health. 
If  by  any  chance  she  should  get  fat  before  next  win¬ 
ter,  what  good  will  it  do  her  ?  The  lice  and  the  frost 
will  feed  on  the  fat  and  out  she  will  stagger  next  year 
— “  spring  poor  ”  again. 
Winter  Fat  Stays  By  Us. 
The  black  and  white  cow  makes  a  brighter  and  hap¬ 
pier  picture.  No  old  bones  here,  pushing  through  a 
tight  hide  to  give  their  death  messag’e.  No  manure 
A  “Spring  Poor”  Cow.  Fig.  193. 
blanket,  no  “hollow  horn” — in  fact,  there  are  no  horns 
at  all — they  were  cut  off  years  ago.*  A  gentle,  healthy, 
good  old  cow — a  mortgage  payer  and  a  stayer.  A  man 
would  trust  his  baby's  life  to  the  milk  from  such  a 
cow  and  be  glad  of  the  chance.  Prof.  Roberts  sold 
just  such  a  cow  as  that  for  $100  to  a  man  who  wanted 
pure  milk  for  his  baby. 
^ow,  what’s  the  difference  between  “spring  poor” 
A  “Spring  Fat”  Cow.  Fig.  194. 
and  “spring  fat?”  Is  it  breed?  Not  much.  The 
old  white  cow  is  a  Shorthorn  grade  and  the  other  is  a 
Holstein  grade.  What  difference  does  that  make  ? 
All  it  shows  Is  that  Shorthorns  are  mighty  hard  to 
kill.  The  test  of  value  applied  to  cows  is  not  based 
on  their  ability  to  linger  along  between  life  and  death, 
but  on  their  ability  to  turn  food  into  milk  and  butter. 
No,  it  is  not  breed  but  feed  and  care  that  make  this 
difference.  The  black  and  white  cow  has  been  treated 
like  a  lady.  She  passed  the  winter  in  a  warm  and 
sunny  stable.  She  had  plenty  of  room  and  all  the 
space  she  needed  for  turning  her  head  about  to  lick 
herself.  She  did  not  need  much  of  this  licking  be¬ 
cause  she  was  carded  and  rubbed  so  that  her  hair 
kept  smooth  and  her  skin  open  and  free  from  irri¬ 
tation.  She  was  bedded  and  kept  clean. 
No  one  swore  at  her  or  kicked  her  or 
struck  her  with  a  milking  stool.  She  had 
pure,  fresh  water  to  drink  whenever  she 
wanted  it — not  cold  enough  to  freeze  the 
bile  in  her  liver,  but  just  cold  enough  to 
taste  good.  She  had  the  sun  and  air  on 
warm,  sunny  days,  but  in  cold  and  storms 
she  exercised  and  played  under  cover.  She 
ate  all  she  wanted  of  pure,  sweet  hay  and 
grain  and  every  day  plunged  her  nose  into 
a  mess  of  fragrant  ensilage.  And  so,  treated 
like  the  regular  Holstein  lady  that  she  is, 
this  cow  went  through  the  winter  and 
came  out  “  spring  fat”  all  ready  for  busi¬ 
ness.  The  grass  didn’t  act  upon  her  like  a 
dose  of  spring  medicine  because  the  ensi¬ 
lage  she  had  eaten  all  winter  long  made 
the  “  change  to  pasture  ”  no  change  at  all. 
While  her  white-livered  sister  over  the 
fence  was  so  weary  that  she  had  to  lie 
down  and  rest  from  the  labor  of  eating  a 
dozen  bites  of  grass,  this  “  spring  fat  cow  ” 
found  it  nothing  but  fun  to  work  all  day 
and  march  home  at  night  ready  to  deliver 
her  three  pecks  of  milk  before  going  out 
again. 
Well,  What  About  It? 
Here  are  two  cows  living  within  a  few 
miles  of  each  other.  One  is  a  payer  and  the  other  is  a 
pauper.  One  keeps  the  farmer  and  the  farmer  keeps 
the  other.  Probably  not  10  per  cent  of  the  dairy  cows 
of  the  country  leave  the  barn  for  pasture  looking  as 
well  as  this  black  and  white  cow.  Let  us  hope  that 
not  over  20  per  cent  look  as  bad  as  the  white  cow, 
but  not  25  per  cent  of  the  dairy  cows  of  the  country 
are  in  fit  condition  for  work  at  the  opening  of  spring. 
One  of  the  greatest  benefits  con¬ 
ferred  by  the  silo,  and  one  perhaps 
least  appreciated,  is  the  fact  that  it 
leaves  the  cows  at  the  close  of  win¬ 
ter  in  good  health,  ready  at  once  for 
pasture  without  the  “scouring  ”  and 
weakening  that  befall  too  many 
animals  that  are  “  hide-bound  ”  or 
“spring  poor.”  There  are  lots  of 
farmers  who  live  through  the  winter 
on  pork,  potatoes  and  griddle  cakes. 
When  they  begin  to  haul  manure  in 
the  spring,  for  some  unaccountable 
reason  they  become  full  of  aches  and 
pains,  and  there  is  a  big  demand  for 
sulphur  and  molasses,  “  stomach  bit¬ 
ters”  “and  other  clearances.”  “That 
tired  feeling  ”  has  put  many  a  farmer 
so  far  behind  with  his  spring  work 
that  he  could  not  catch  up  all  sum¬ 
mer.  A  winter  diet  of  fruit  and 
vegetables  would  have  sent  the 
farmer  to  his  spring  work  like  a 
yearling  colt.  It  is  just  the  same 
with  cows — substituting  ensilage  or 
roots  for  the  fruit.  We  don’t  believe  that  the  milk  or 
the  meat  of  these  “spring-poor”  cows  is  fit  to  eat,  and 
it  should  be  kept  by  law  out  of  the  market.  Dairy¬ 
men  who  treat  their  cows  in  this  way  rank  with  bogus 
butter  as  an  enemy  of  American  ag-riculture,  all  the 
more  dangerous  because  they  can’t  be  reached  by  any 
present  law. 
