45o 
HIGH GRAIN AND LOW COWS? 
„ What Shall We Do ? 
1. Cut dow the grain ration ? 
2. Sell off the poorer cows ? 
3. Give up grain entirely for the summer ? 
4. Feed full grain rations in spite of high 
prices ? 
Don’t Let the Cows “Shrink.” 
D. C. C., Jasper, N. Y.—1. It is a ques¬ 
tion that every man must settle for him¬ 
self. One should feed as cheaply as possi¬ 
ble. It depends upon his market for his 
produce. The other day a man came here 
and wanted to contract my butter at 26 
cents per pound; it does not seem as 
though I can let my cows shrink when 100 
pounds of butter will nearly pay for a ton 
of cotton seed meal. Pasture is poor in this 
section. If we have a general drought pro¬ 
duce will fetch better prices and we can 
afford to feed. I feed from four to six 
pounds of cotton seed meal a day according 
to the size of the cows, which are small, 
but few weighing 1,000 pounds. 2. Weigh 
and test the milk and sell the unprofit¬ 
able cows. Nos. 3 and 4. I shall feed my 
cows all they want or sell them. The 
feed will be grain, grass, peas, oats or corn, 
so that they will not be hungry. 
The Cow Is a Machine. 
W. J. S., Albion, N. Y.—1. No. 2. Yes, 
as fast as they will not pay interest on their 
cost leaving the manure to pay for the care 
they receive. I have sent to the butcher 
this spring three that were giving milk. 3. 
No, I would feed the kind and quality of 
grain that my experience with each cow 
had taught me was necessary to make her 
do best, in addition to pasture or feed. 4. 
Yes; that is, I would adapt the ration to 
the cow and the season of the year, but 
would give some grain all the time when 
the animal was giving milk. I am not 
much of a dairyman, but have had some 
expei ience with a few cows, and read and 
thought considerably on the subject, and 
have come to regard the cow very much in 
the light of a machine for the manufacture 
of milk, meat or manure. No machine 
turns out the finished product without an 
adequate supply of the raw material. Is 
the model cow born or made ? Blood and 
breeding undoubtedly tell, but not the 
whole story. How many of the high butter 
records we read of are due to extra care and 
very high feeding ? How would the record 
makers stand neglect and how much do we 
hear of the failures ? 
I believe that comfortable quarters and 
food to meet all the requirements of nature 
not only from birth but before, for the 
mother as well as for the offspring, and all 
the time until the latter reaches maturity, 
will do much to redeem even the so-called 
scrubs from the position they now occupy. 
We can’t expect to make as much profit 
perhaps when grain is high, although dairy 
products, it would seem, should vary some¬ 
what in the same proportion; yet to my 
mind to withold the grain would be a good 
way if not to kill the goose, at least to pre¬ 
vent her from laying the golden eggs. 
How to Make Cheap Milk. 
M. ,H. C. Gardner, Orange County, 
N. Y.—Feeding dairy cows for profit 
during the season of flush pasture, is a 
practice the wisdom of which is not fully 
settled among farmers, while it is disputed 
by the large majority. It is also affirmed 
and defended with much warmth and 
vigor by a very respectable minority that 
continuous or summer feeding of cows in 
milk pays, perhaps not while grass is rank, 
but in the long run. As a milkman I have 
never fed the season through, but have 
commenced very early in the fall, but the 
high price of feed and the low price of milk 
to the farmer at present make the ques¬ 
tion more difficult to solve than ever. To 
reach a profit, however, one thing is cer¬ 
tain—the dairy must be a good one and 
each particular cow must be good also. It 
is, therefore, proper to weed the dairy well, 
and turn over to the butcher such as do 
not give satisfaction at the pail when in 
good pasturage, or under favorable feed. 
How to make cheap milk is a question 
that worries farmers with the present 
prices of the raw materials. 
F. L. S., Bainbridge, N. Y.—What would 
be advisable for one may not be so for an¬ 
other. Each dairyman must determine for 
himself what his conditions are, and whether 
the one or the other practice would be to 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
JUNE i3 
his advantage. 1. I always cut down the 
grain ration as the cows become estab¬ 
lished on grass diet. At this time—May 
18—1 am feeding about one-half as much 
as I was before the cows had any grass, 
and am getting as large a flow of milk as 
I had at any time last season. 2. Sell off 
the poorer cows by all means. Use a Bab¬ 
cock milk tester, which, if also the milk is 
weighed, will show just how each cow 
should be rated, and those who do not come 
up to a fair standard should be sold with¬ 
out regard to tfcie price of grain. 3. The 
condition of the cows and also of the pas¬ 
ture must be taken into consideration. If 
the former are thin In flesh, feed grain. If 
the latter is insufficient, do the same; but 
neither of these conditions should exist. 
Cows in good condition and in good pas¬ 
ture do not need grain. When the pas¬ 
tures begin to fail in July, commence to feed 
grain—a handful or a pint, or, If wheat 
bran is a part of the mixture, a quart will 
help to keep up the cow’s condition and 
give good returns. 4 Depending on buy¬ 
ing grain and feeding full rations I believe 
to be poor economy. The dairyman should 
supply a good, well-balanced ration of his 
own production or one nearly well bal¬ 
anced. The price of butter would have 
more to do with the profits of feeding grain 
than the price of the grain ; but I think it 
the true rule of economy for the dairyman 
to supply his own feed for his stock, feed¬ 
ing the coarsest that he produces, mixing 
therewith the more concentrated foods, to 
obtain balanced rations. 
That Sermon Against the Silo. 
W. F. Massey, North Carolina Ex¬ 
periment Station.— That “ Ensilage Here¬ 
tic” A. T. T., of Franklin Park, N. J., is a 
curious specimen. He says he has made 
ensilage, and good ensilage of various 
materials, and finds it costs too much. I 
do not, of course, know anything about his 
methods, or anything of the capacity of his 
men to work. I have made thousands of 
tons of ensilage under circumstances in¬ 
volving more cost than most people have 
incurred. Most of my ensilage was made 
on low lands in a mountain region, while 
my silos and barns were away up on the 
mountain slope, and all the corn had to be 
hauled up a steep hill fully half a mile from 
the edge of the low lands, and frequently 
from distant points on the long stretch of 
level bottoms, and yet a careful calculation 
never made the cost of cultivating and stor¬ 
ing the crop more than $1.00 per ton through 
a series of years, and often less. But I 
never had much less than 20 tons per acre, 
and sometimes a little more by actual 
weight. My ensilage was always grown as 
a second crop after a crop of clover hay had 
been cut from the land. I have frequently 
cut nearly three tons per acre of clover hay 
in June and made 20 tons per acre on the 
same land that season, so It is hardly fair 
to charge the whole use of the land to the 
ensilage crop, as I always did in my esti¬ 
mates of its cost. 
That corn ensilage is not good food for 
horses is a notion I thought was long ago 
exploded. I once fed a team of six mules, 
that were constantly worked hard on the 
road hauling coal, with ensilage with the 
best results. They were fed 15 pounds a 
day of ensilage in lieu of 9% pounds of the 
hay they had been getting, and did better 
than when fed the full ration of 15 pounds 
of hay. Injudicious feeding of such succu¬ 
lent food to horses and mules is, of course, 
apt to give trouble, but this is no argument 
against ensilage as a proper food for work 
animals in connection with hay. 
I perfectly agree with “Heretic” in re¬ 
gard to putting up whole corn for ensilage. 
It is the worst sort of economy, for it not 
only makes poor ensilage, but it is far more 
costly to cut down whole ensilage by hand 
to feed it out than to cut it properly at 
first. 
A. T. T. says he has not abandoned sow¬ 
ing fodder corn. Now, if he can handle fod¬ 
der corn, store it and feed it as cheaply as 
he could ensilage, he must be peculiarly 
situated and have a peculiar climate for 
curing it. The proper curing of corn fod¬ 
der involves more handling of “ the heavy 
stuff ” than making ensilage does. The 
waste in handling and feeding it will much 
more than pay the cost of cutting it into 
the silo in the first place, and the cost of 
storing it is vastly greater. If not stored 
under cover, the loss and waste are enor¬ 
mously increased. The stalks are not con¬ 
sumed, but go into the manure pile to make 
the hands use “ cuss words ” in loading it, 
even if they do not break all the pitchforks 
on the place in doing it. If it is chopped 
up for feeding, it costs more to do so than 
it would have cost to have chopped it 
green, and its results in feeding, under the 
test of the milk pail, will not compare with 
those from the same weight of dry matter 
in the form of ensilage. Ensilage is better 
for a horse with the heaves than any 
dry fodder. If A. T. T. was so amazed 
at his calculations of cost with ensilage, I 
suggest that he make some calculations 
with dried fodder corn from the time it is 
cut down until fed. I think he will be 
amazed again. 
What Is “Sun Scald?” 
O. C. C , Oconto, Wis.— In my opinion 
sun scald on fruit trees is caused in spring, 
when the sap starts on the southwest side 
of the tree and then comes a cold wave and 
the temperature goes down 60 degrees to 
80 degrees in 24 hours, as it did recently 
when it sank from 80 degrees above on one 
day to 26 degrees on the following morning. 
The warm days started the sap and then 
the cold wave froze it up. As regards pre¬ 
ventives, there are a good many: first, 
have low heads on the trees; second, be 
sure that they shall not lean to the south¬ 
east ; third, use lath or board on the south¬ 
west side, and, best of all, keep them in a 
healthy condition and if in any direction 
let them lean to the southwest. Of late 
years I have had no trouble from this 
cause, as I have discarded all varieties that 
are subject to sun scald or blight. 
Corn Fodderfor Horses. 
A. J. C., New Haven County, Conn.— 
A. T. T. advocates, in a late Rural, the 
use of dried corn fodder, and condemns 
ensilage as food for horses. He sows three 
pecks of corn per acre. This should give 
heavy stalks. If his horses will eat such 
fodder, uncut, without wasting a very large 
proportion, they are better feeders than 
mine. Nine or ten years ago, after having 
fed corn stalks, uncut, to several horses 
and mules during most of the winter, with 
the usual waste, I determined to economize 
by cutting. The stalks were cut fine and 
fed, and, within a week, six mules and one 
horse—all that got the feed—were dead. 
The next year I fed a mare and weanling 
colt corn ensilage, and both died within a 
week, exhibiting precisely the same symp¬ 
toms shown by the mules and horse, viz. 
great thirst and inability to swallow. 
Hence my conclusion is that well-grown 
corn fodder, fed whole, cut, or ensiloed, is 
not economical food for horses. 
R. N.-Y. We have fed considerable 
whole corn fodder to horses, and always 
with satisfactory results except for the 
great waste. It is a fact that Axtell, the 
great trotting stallion, was fed almost en¬ 
tirely upon stalks and oats when a colt. 
Dried stalks, chopped into small pieces, 
have always given our horses sore mouths. 
When steamed or moistened with hot 
water, they are eaten readily and without 
ill effects. We do not understand how 
ensilage can injure a horse, particularly 
as hundreds of farmers are feeding it to 
their horses regularly. 
Advertisers treat all correspondents 
well if they mention The Rural New 
Yorker. 
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Says Nearly 
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