1894 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
455 
of fence ; these will pass through an inch auger hole. 
They are tightened with a short hook on a handle, 
turning the hook backwards against the post; the 
tension is kept tight by placing spikes through 
the links. Ratchets or rollers may be used if pre¬ 
ferred. None of the staples is driven home. If an 
animal strikes the fence, it draws on the whole line, 
and as soon as the pressure is off the fence rebounds 
to its place. I would like J. S. W.’s fence first rate if 
the staples were not driven tight, and some tension 
device were used at the ends. Tension will keep the 
pickets in place. When staples are driven tight in 
posts and pickets, and the wire is subject to pressure 
and is bent it remains so. I believe that J. S. W. 
uses three or four times as many pickets as necessary, 
which certainly makes the fence sag between the 
posts. 
This fence does not sag perceptibly. There is no 
need of a barbed wire on top or at the bottom. Some 
build with barbed or buck-thorn wire on top. but I see 
no use of making a dangerous fence out of a safe one. 
Many will no doubt think that stock will push the 
wires out of the notches ; but I very seldom find them 
out of place. The colts and cows sometimes put their 
heads through the top spaces, but seldom throw the 
wires out of place. JOHN m .iamison. 
Ross County, Ohio. 
MAKING THE MOST OF MANURE. 
A great deal is being said about fertilizers, etc., 
and I think that Thk R. N.-Y. is the most pro¬ 
nounced paper of all as re¬ 
gards the use of them. I quit 
the practice of law four years 
ago on account of poor health, 
and moved on my farm here 
in Summit County, Ohio. The 
farm had been rented for a 
dairy for some 18 years. The 
manure had usually gone in 
the regular way into the 
creek, and the farm of 92 
acres, instead of keeping 20 
cows, would hardly keep 1C. 
The first year, supposing that 
land was all alike and good, 1 
put out two acres of potatoes, 
but most of the time was taken 
up in building fences, repair¬ 
ing house, etc. This crop of 
potatoes, I have often said, 
paid me well. I planted 24 
bushels of seed, and dug nine 
bushels of potatoes. When I 
dug this crop there was not 
much figuring on the profit, 
but a good deal of thinking. 
The result was that I re¬ 
modeled my barn with a view 
to save every particle of ma¬ 
nure. I studied this matter 
over in every way. M!y barn 
and yard being on a sidehill, 
the fertility was likely to get away. I examined 
T. B. Terry’s covered yard plan, but concluded that I 
did not want any of that. 
I tore out all the floor in my stables and hog pens, 
and paved and cemented them. My stable for six 
horses is higher than the hog pens, and adjoins them. 
Next to the hog pens I built a basin 10x30 feet, and 
three feet deep, with a stone wall around it. Over 
this I put a good roof, the bottom is paved, and the 
bottom and sides cemented, so that it is water-tight. 
The drainage from my horse stable and hog pen all 
goes into this. My cow stable is also cemented, and 
at the lower end is a catch basin in the drop, with a 
grating over it. Leading from this is a tile so that 
all liquid manure finds its way into the manure shed. 
When I clean my stables and hog pens, all manure is 
wheeled into this. The hog pens connect with this 
manure shed by a swing door, so that the hogs have 
the run of the manure pile, and if I think they 
do not mix it quite fine or deep enough, I scatter on a 
little shelled corn or wheat. The result is that my 
manure is free from waste and rain water ; it is thor¬ 
oughly worked, never fire-fangs, and further than 
that, it absorbs all the liquid without the use of cis¬ 
tern, sprinkler, pumps, etc. It acts like a sponge, 
takes the liquid all up, and together with about 10 
tons of fertilizers each year is beginning to tell on 
the old, worn-out farm. x. 
Twinsburgh, Ohio. 
Babx Pi.,an8 Wanted —I would like to build a small 
barn to accommodate 12 cows, and wish to feed en¬ 
silage. I would like plans for building, with the best 
arrangement of stalls, fastenings, watering device and 
p’an of floor. I wish to keep everything as clean as 
possible with, of course, the least labor possible 
Rehoboth, Md. e. a. s. 
A CHAMPION ENGLISH GUERNSEY. 
The London Live Stock Journal gives a picture of 
the cow Mountain Maid 2nd, which v^on first and Cham¬ 
pion prizes at the London Dairy Show. This animal 
is considered about the finest type of the Guernsey 
cow to be found in England. She seems a little heavy 
and beefy for the type most of our American breeders 
are working for. 
The Guernsey cattle have always been popular as 
practical dairy workers. They have never been 
boomed or pushed like the Jerseys, but they always 
give a good account of themselves whenever they are 
tested. The .Jerseys beat them out of sight at the 
Chicago test. With the vastly greater number of 
.lerseys in the country it was, of course, much easier 
to select 25 or 30 good individuals than from the much 
smaller total number of Guernseys. The Guernsey 
breeders claim that even this test shows that their 
cattle are the most economical dairy cows. In figuring 
out the profit side of this test, the butter was figured 
at over 45 cents a pound. The Guernsey men claim 
that if it were figured at 20 or 25 cents—the prices 
obt? ined by ordinary farmers—the Guernseys would 
make the better showing, as they made a pound of 
butter for less than either the .lerseys or Short-horns. 
It is well enough to look at the facts in the case. In 
the 30 day test the following results were obtained : 
.Jerseys. (Juernseys. Short-horns. 
Pounds of milk. IS'Jil JiJ.SlS 15.K18 
Pounds of Duller . 8S7 724 (itiz 
Costotfood. $111.24 $'.)?.77 $104.f.'> 
Cost per pound 01 Dimer ... 0.183 0.128 0.158 
As between the .lerseys and Guernseys, the latter 
made the cheaper pound of butter, but the Jerseys 
made considerably more from nearly the same amount 
of milk. The prices at which this butter was credited, 
were .461 cents for Jersey, .455 for Guernsey and .459 
for Short-horn. 
In the 90-day test, the records for the entire herds 
were as follows : 
.Jerseys. Guernseys. Short-horns. 
I’ounds of milk. 73 4*8 01781 60,263 
Pounds ot butter. 4./13 3.300 2 890 
Cost of food. $587.14 $484.14 $501.19 
There are the figures. Those who desire to figure the 
butter out at 20 or 25 cents may do so. 
REAL VALUE OF THE BABCOCK TEST. 
WHAT IT WII.D AND WHAT IT WILD NOT DO. 
The Babcock test has now been In use a number of years, and Its 
value has been pretty thoroughly determined. 
Just what Is Us place In a herd of dairy cows 7 
Uow often must It be used In order to get an accurate idea of the 
cow's value 1 
In buying »-cow by the Babcock test, would a single test satisfy you? 
How Often to Test. 
With the Babcock test properly operated in connec¬ 
tion with the scales, the dairyman can tell just how 
much butter fat each cow in his herd produces during 
the period the cows are tested. To arrive at perfect 
accuracy, the milk must all be weighed, and a sample 
taken from each milking. Prom these samples, a com¬ 
posite test may be made once a week or once in two 
weeks as may be convenient. The samples may be 
kept from getting thick by the addition of a little 
bichromate of potash. Care should be taken all the 
way through to get a correct sample of each milking 
by having the milk thoroughly mixed. The same care 
should be used when the samples for the test bottles 
are taken. 
For the purpose of determining which cows in a 
herd are profitable and which are not, the dairyman 
can approximate near enough for all practical pur¬ 
poses by testing occasionally. Occe a month, or even 
as few as three times during the season, if the amount 
of milk is known, will do very well. But whenever 
cows are tested, a sample should be taken from more 
than one milking. The variation in fat from one 
milking to another is often considerable—sometimes 
one per cent or more. I once had morning’s milk from 
one cow test two per cent and her night’s milk test 
five per cent. This, of course, was an extreme case, 
but there is almost always some difference ; sometimes 
the night’s milk is the best and sometimes the morn¬ 
ing’s. I do not consider a test of much value unless a 
sample is taken from at least two consecutive milk¬ 
ings, and I think it much better to take samples from 
several. In testing the cows on my farm, I have 
adopted the rule to test at least three times during the 
year, and at each testing to take samples from 10 con¬ 
secutive milkings or for five days. 
If I were buying cows by the Babcock test, I would 
want samples from more than one milking, or I 
would not give a cent for it. Now I suppose the 
reader is saying that if it is so much work to find out 
the value of a cow by the Babcock test, it will not pay 
to get one. But I wish to say that I never got any 
useful knowledge without some labor and expense, 
and I never got any that paid better on the investment 
than that which I obtained by the use of that little 
instrument. If one uses it faithfully, he will be won¬ 
derfully surprised to find that some of his cows which 
he supposed were his best ones on account of the quan¬ 
tity of milk they gave, were 
his poorest ones and not pay¬ 
ing their board because their 
miik is so deficient in butter 
fat; while some cows which 
ho had considered rather poor 
ones, were the ones paying the 
largest profit, c. p. goodhich. 
.Jefferson County, Wis. 
The Babcock Test as a Check 
The use of the Babcock test 
in a dairy is to ascertain the 
individual value of each cow, 
without the trouble of churn¬ 
ing each mess by itself over 
and over to verify or invalidate 
the first trial. With the ad¬ 
vent of the Babcock test, this 
was all changed. The test 
was simple, easy to be made, 
inexpensive, and what was 
more, dealt with the fats alone 
of the milk and not with any 
of the other solids. This made 
it perfectly easy to calculate, 
necessitated the using of only 
a single fluid ounce at a time 
of the mess of milk, and inter¬ 
fered in no way with the use of 
the rest of the milk in its place 
for buttermaking. The test 
showed the fats in the milk, water free, and no other 
solids, and put each cow upon her own merits of produc¬ 
tion. It told in 10 minutes which cow gave three-per¬ 
cent and which five-per-cent milk, and that the 50 
pounds of one cow might have no more butter in it than 
the 30 pounds of a smaller cow. It told more, that 
the addition of richer food to make richer milk re¬ 
sulted in only a trifling disturbance of the solids that 
in a few days settled back to the normal per cent. As 
a rule, it will be found that the 30-pounds-of-milk-a- 
day cow will give the best milk with quite as much 
fat in it as in the larger yields ; in this the test is a 
great leveler of “ claims” made for prodigious yields 
of milk rich in total fats. It is along this line that the 
test will do a great work in promoting good dairying. 
All recent investigations go to prove the practical 
working of the Babcock test, that there are only three- 
fourths of a pound of casein in milk for each pound of 
fat, and so the man who desires to have the dairy pro¬ 
ducing the greatest amount of cheese to the amount 
of milk, must have a dairy that gives the largest pos¬ 
sible flow of milk, rich in fat. The larger the average 
yields, and the closer these yields approach the five-per¬ 
cent fat line, the greater the value for cheese. The 
Babcock teils this in advance, as no other method can, 
with unfailing accuracy, and what is more, in a few 
moments’ tim3, and at an expense of only a few cents. 
It is not wise to take a single test as indicating 
what a cow will do, for this test applied each day re¬ 
veals the fact that there is a constant—but varying— 
change going on from day to day in the fat and solid 
contents of the milk of the individual cow ; the single 
test might be taken when the fat per cent was at a 
high or a very low marking, and so would overrate or 
underestimate a cow’s actual worth. It is best to 
take at least weekly averages of the milk produced, 
and base the estimates on this. Since the composite 
