66 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
Feb. 4 
“ I see you have a thrashing machine, but it is a 
‘ little-one-for-a-cent ’ kind.” 
“ Yes. A Tompkins County oscillator would thrash 
more grain in a day than that will in a week. I do not 
believe it pays to fool with a small thrasher. It costs 
more to hire, or even board help than the entire ex¬ 
pense of thrashing with a large one.” 
“ What kind of oats are those ? ” 
“ Some call them the Clydesdale, which I under¬ 
stand is the same as the White Swedish. We sowed 
as early as the ground would allow, and got a good 
crop, which is not the custom here.” Late sowing and 
poor crops are the rule, I think, from what I heard. 
“ Can you make anything by feeding pigs ?” 
“ Last spring we bought 12. When six months old, 
they gave a clear profit of $4.50 each, and we have 
bought 15 more for winter feeding.” 
“ Would it not pay to raise your own pigs ? ” 
“ We think so, and are making preparations for it. 
We expect to get a good sow of the Cheshire or a simi¬ 
lar breed and stop buying. 
Churning' a Batch of Butter. 
“Come over to the dairy house. I see steam is up 
and I have a churning ready. This engine is a one- 
horse power. It will do our work, warm water for 
washing the dairy utensils, and heat the room for 24 
hours with a scuttle and a half of coal. That is less 
coal than a stove would take. We use the Davis 
swing churn, which for hand work is excellent, but 
for power I prefer a barrel churn, as I can get at it 
better.” 
“ How is your cream gathered ? ” 
“We use a separator of 300 pounds’ capacity, and 
prefer it for several reasons. First, we get more but¬ 
ter. With our cold water creamer we lost from four 
to six-tenths of one per cent of fat, while with the 
separator the loss is from one to two-tenths. Second, 
with the creamer we had to put up 1,000 cakes of ice, 
now 100 will answer. Third, our skim-milk is already 
warmed to feed the calves and pigs. Fourth, it saves 
time in churning, as the cream is thicker, and I can 
churn two-fifths more butter at a churning.” 
“ How thick is your cream ? ” 
“ I consider cream about right when 27 per cent is 
butter fat. Cream needs frequent stirring to facilitate 
even ripening and this cream stirrer is the best thing 
out. I never saw but one before. The shape is like 
that of a pint basin with the bottom out, and a long 
wire handle attached to each side of the inverted cup.” 
See Fig. 22. 
Another convenient article is an ordinary dipper 
with a fine strainer bottom. The butter-milk runs 
through this, as it is drawn from the churn. Mr. 
Tar bell has rigged a wheel and attachment, so he 
runs the llabcock tester with the engine. Another 
time-saver is a burette which he fills with acid, and 
the bottles can be filled rapidly from it, as it stands 
upright in its holder, which is fastened. 
“ How much salt do you use ? ” 
“ Our customers are quite uniform in their requjre- 
ments: one ounce to the pound suits them. They like 
a dry butter, and I work it as dry as possible without 
injuring the grain.” 
“ How do you pack it ? ” 
“ In 10, 18, 25, 30 and 50-pound Carter packages. 
We line each with parchment paper, so no butter 
touches the tin. During the summer season we sup¬ 
plied the ‘ Wawanda’ with butter in bars, an inch and 
a half square, and 18 inches long. This makes a nice 
shape for serving directly.” 
The churning was done, including stops, in 18 
minutes. After drawing off the butter-milk some 
weak brine is thrown into the churn. This seems to 
separate the granules and lets the butter-milk run 
out, better than water. Then water is put in and, 
after a few turns of the churn, is drawn off. This is 
repeated until the water runs clear. The butter and 
salt are weighed and put on the lever butter worker. 
As they are carefully stirred together the beautiful 
golden mass keeps crawling like soft sugar. It does 
not look much like the salvey mass of former days. 
No drawing of ladle or lever, only gentle pressure to 
get out the moisture, and press together. The whole 
secret is in stopping the churn at the right moment 
and keeping the right temperature while working. 
The butter is packed at once and has a grain like 
broken iron. 
“ How much butter do you make ?” 
“ We shall get 210 pounds per head this season. We 
have six heifers that calved at 18 months, three three- 
year-olds and one farrow cow.” That is a good 
average and at the price their butter sells for will 
leave a profit. c. e. c. 
One cent will carry this paper to your friend in 
any part of North America after you have written 
your name on the corner to show whom it is from. 
SKIMS FROM MAPLE GROVE DAIRY. 
With the kind of weather we have had during the 
first half of January, I think close or continual sta¬ 
bling of cows, without so much as even an hour's fresh 
zero air, has been the most profitable way for me to 
keep my cows, and I think any one who has tried this 
plan and compared the results with those from the old 
way of letting the cows have the comforts of the 
barnyard, standing for hours perhaps trying to see 
how much higher they could get their backs than the 
rest of their bodies, going half a mile and sometimes 
more for a nice drink of ice water (and at times like 
these there will frequently be such very cold days 
that the cows will get so chilled that they will not 
drink when they do get there), will at once be con¬ 
vinced that this is the better plan. It is very foolish 
on the part of a winter dairyman to try to make milk 
by forcing his cows to drink at a creek in cold weather 
when they ought to be enjoying themselves in the 
barn. 
This is the second season in which I have kept my 
cows continually in swing stanchions, and I haven’t 
as yet seen any bad results. About two months after 
1 had begun this system, I got a little nervous about 
my cows on account of what I was told by a number 
of wiseacres. One said he had seen the same thing 
tried before and when spring came the animals were 
not able to walk; another insisted that they would get 
galloping consumption; still another declared that they 
might pull through the winter but they would not be 
worth a fig afterwards, so 1 turned them out one day 
to see if they could walk, and a livelier lot of cows 
than they were for about an hour I had never seen, 
but as a result there was a shortage of 20 quarts of 
milk next morning. 
All’s not gold that glitters. One man’s failure in 
some particular thing may, if that failure be as well 
published as are a great many successful under¬ 
takings, be worth to the people, in general more than 
success in that particular line could possibly be to 
that particular individual; so now for the failures. 
When putting in my water pipes I did not put them 
in deep enough at one point, and consequently one 
cold night our water-works ceased to work at the 
barn. Now it would have cost 50 cents more to have 
put that pipe down beyond all possible danger from 
frost instead of putting it two feet underground and 
trusting to running water for the rest; that 50 cents 
would have been many times saved by proper man¬ 
agement. 
Another failure came as follows; When I was ready 
to cut my ensilage corn I engaged an engine to run 
my cutter and it was to have come on Thursday ; so I 
cut a lot of corn and got everything ready to push 
things when putting it in the silo; but, alas! the 
engine broke down and I could not get another until 
the next Wednesday and at that time the corn that 
had been cut and put in piles in the lot had dried so 
much that I lost several tons in the silo. If I should 
ever get caught in such a fix again, I’d wet it down so 
that it would pack well enough to keep. My ensilage 
is perfect with the exception of the mouldy spots in 
the parts that were too dry when put in. For ensilage 
I prefer a variety of Southern corn called, with us, the 
Southern fodder corn, as I can get more tons per acre 
of it than of any other I have raised, and I think about 
as much grain if it were husked. A large portion— 
probably three-fourths—of mine was ripe enough to 
be husked when we cut it for ensilage. My faith in 
this never grows less, but I find there is a great deal 
to be learnt about it in order to have it just right and 
the perfect article is the only one which we should be 
satisfied with. Look over the many failures in the 
various parts of your dairy, for there must be a great 
many, even if small, and put your brains to work to 
avoid each cause of total or partial failure. Just see 
if there wasn’t in your last year’s work something 
that might have been done better and if there was, be 
sure to remedy it as soon as possible. Weed out the 
cows that cost more per year than they bring in. See 
if you can’t find just a little more profitable ration for 
feeding: see if you can’t produce just a little better 
article than you did last year, and then be sure to get 
a correspondingly good price. .john q. wells. 
THIRSTY COWS. 
THE COW MUST DRINK OR SHRINK. 
It is the almost universal practice among dairymen 
in this country to turn their cows out to drink once a 
day. They say the cow can then drink all she needs 
until the next day. My word for it, it can’t be done. 
I have tried the cows. Their actions and appetites 
show very plainly to any one who will take the 
trouble to test their drinking apparatus, that they 
need water oftener than once a day. For a few days 
last winter the water was weighed for my dairy of 20 
cows giving milk and kept in the stable and watered 
twice a day. The water trough is both inside and 
outside the barn. 
The greatest quantity drank in one day was 1,820 
pounds; and the least 1,470 pounds. For a number of 
days the average per cow was 83 pounds. 
Now, if they had been turned out as most dairymen’s 
cows are, and obliged to travel a long distance for 
water—ice cold at that, producing a chill of the whole 
system—instead of their drinking what they required 
for 24 hours at one watering, they could not take more 
than half what they needed. 
This winter the usual practice in this dairy section 
is to turn the cows out to drink at 9 or 10 o’clock. 
They all drink heartily; if the weather is pleasant 
they remain out until 3 or 4 o’clock. I do not do this, 
however, as my cows at present have not been let 
loose from their comfortable cow ties for four weeks. 
Now here is where the cruelty comes in. The animals 
have drank only once, and will not drink again for 24 
hours. After they are back in the stable their systems 
need some feed. After they have fed, 19 cows out of 
20 will drink, with a relish, from one to three pails 
of water—25 to 50 pounds. Now think of the suffer¬ 
ing from thirst a cow must endure in going from 
chore time at night until she is let out the next day 
for water. It is doing violence to her system to re¬ 
quire her to go that length of time without drink. 
Such a method of watering is surely very detrimental 
to the cow that gives milk, and must retard digestion. 
The cow as she stands is about 6J per cent water; that 
is, if the carcass is separated into its constituents, or 
the water is all extracted, half the weight v ill turn 
out to be water. 
I believe no water is fit for a cow that is unfit for a 
man to drink. I beb'eve that on the same feed they 
now get, most of the cows in our dairy community 
would give milk enough to wholly or in a large part 
pay for their keep, if they could have all the water 
they wanted. Then, instead of the owner being a dry 
nurse to the cow from three to four months, when 
properly fed and watered she would need such atten¬ 
tion only for three to six weeks. We hear many a 
man say : 
“ I believe my cows are all right when let out to 
di’ink once a day.” 
“Did you feed your cows all they wanted in the 
morning ? ” I ask. 
“Yes.” 
“ Did you water them all they wanted in the 
morning?” 
“ Yes ; I turned them out; I suppose they drank all 
they wanted.” 
“ Did you see them drink before you put them up ?” 
“ No.” 
“ Did you water them after you put them up ? ” 
“ No ; I don’t think they needed it.” 
