f 
1 
I 
k 
Jr 
¥ 
t 
ii 
VOL. LIII. No. 2322. NEW YORK, JULY 28, 1894. $1.00 per year. 
The Re=-Making of a Guernsey Herd. 
BUII.DING UP FROM THE ASHKS 
THE GUERNSEY STILL ON DECK. 
[iniTOBIAL COEBBSPONDKNCB.] 
From the Ground Up! 
On August 2, 1893, the great barn at Hon. Levi P. 
Morton’s Ellerslie Stock Farm contained the finest herd 
of Guernsey cattle in the world. There were 90 cows 
in milk, and a small army of bulls and young stock. 
The young heifers and some of the calves were at 
pasture, but the cows and bulls were in the barn. It 
is the custom at Ellerslie to keep the cows tied under 
cover all the year around. They are fed ensilage or 
green grass every day of the 305, and never leave their 
stalls. At night all was well. The great barn with 
its vast stores of hay and grain, and the almost price¬ 
less herd was left as usual. In the morning not a 
stick was left standing—there was not even a shovel 
left with which to clear away the ruins, and not even 
a halter with which to tie a burned cow. There was 
not even milk enough to lighten the color of a cup of 
coffee. In a few short hours, fire had wiped out this 
splendid prop¬ 
erty. 
This is the 
second time the 
barn at Ellers¬ 
lie has been 
burned. There 
were many who 
thought Mr. 
Morton would 
now give up his 
plan of collect¬ 
ing a vast herd 
of Guernseys. 
He might well 
have done so, 
but against the 
advice of many 
friends, he de¬ 
cided to rebuild 
“Within a 
year,” he said, 
“ we must have 
this barn re¬ 
built, another 
herd collected, 
and 2000 tons of 
ensilage ready 
for the silo ! ” 
Having thus stated his wishes, Mr. Morton sailed 
for Europe, leaving his superintendent, Mr. H. M. 
Cottrell to arrange details for this great task. The 
year is nearly up, let us see how much has been done. 
To start with, they had about 00 head of young 
heifers, plenty of capital, and about 70 acres of grow¬ 
ing ensilage corn. Before the ruins were fairly cold, 
an army of men was at work clearing away and 
strengthening the foundations for the new buildiog. 
This has been completed several months. It is an 
exact copy of the former barn as shown in the pic¬ 
tures at Figures 121 and 123. The main building is 
296 feet long and 05 feet wide, with an L 89 by 52 feet. 
It is so built that it may be doubled in length if need 
be. As it stands, the barn will house 400 head of stock 
with the needed grain, hay and ensilage. Fig. 123 
shows an inside view of the barn with the accommo¬ 
dations arranged for the cows. A feature of the new 
barn is a system of pipes for carrying the liquid ma¬ 
nure to a big cistern. These pipes alone cost $2,000. 
With plenty of money, it is a comparatively easy 
thing to build a barn. The materials and the men 
can be bought and managed. It is another thing to 
build up,a first-class dairy herd, and grow the forage 
for them on short notice. One cannot manufacture 
first-class Guernseys with a saw and hammer. 
Filling tbe Barn with. Cattle. 
At the time this herd was wiped out, the Jerseys 
were sweeping all before them in the World’s Fair 
dairy tests. They had left the representative Guern¬ 
seys and Short-horns far behind. 
“ Why did you not let the Guernseys go, and stock 
up with Jerseys ? ” I asked Mr. Cottrell. 
“ Because we still believe the Guernseys are better 
all around dairy cows. We take no ‘back water’ on this 
breed. We know it will cost more to stock up with 
Guernseys, for we are offered Jersey cows of first- 
class pedigrees for the same price as Guernsey heifers. 
The Guernseys command higher prices, and our young 
stock from that breed will be worth more.” 
“ But the Jerseys beat the Guernseys at Chicago, 
didn’t they ? ” 
“ Yes, 20 cows beat 20 cows, but here is a point 
which you may not have considered. Let the butter 
made at Chicago be quoted at the average prices re¬ 
ceived by farmers, and charge the feed actually eaten 
at the same price to all the breeds, and the Guernseys 
will show the greater profit. The butter in those 
tests was quoted at prices away above what the farmer 
gets. The Guernsey is the business man’s dairy cow. 
She will give the most profit from a dollar’s worth of 
feed. That is what we want, and the fact that the 
average Guernsey is worth more than the average 
Jersey, is evidence that the public recognize the merits 
of the former.” 
“ What steps have you taken to build up a new 
herd ? ” 
“The old herd was started six years ago with 90 
two-year-old heifers. After the fire, we had 60 heif¬ 
ers—many of them in calf. All our young bulls were 
sold, but some of these heifers were in calf to our old 
bull Midas, and we hope to obtain a son worthy of 
him. In the meantime we shall use the best bull we 
can secure. We first expected to go to Guernsey, and 
pick out 250 of the best cows and yearling heifers we 
could find there, but this idea has been abandoned, 
and we shall buy entirely in this country.” 
“ How shall you pick them out ? ” 
“ Largely by pedigree, shape and general appear¬ 
ance. We buy no cattle tht^t cannot stand the tuber¬ 
culin test for tuberculosis. Every animal we buy 
must be guaranteed free from that disease. We have 
never had a case of this disease in animals of our own 
breeding, but have had nearly 20 head slaughtered 
that were bought from other parties. We have had 
our herd tested until we know that we have no dis¬ 
eased cows.” 
“ What about the Babcock test for selecting cows ?” 
“ A single test with the Babcock is often mislead¬ 
ing. There are so many conditions that enter into it 
—the total yield of milk, time from calving, etc., that 
a single test alone does not show all that we want.” 
“ How many head have you now ? ” 
“ We have 100 head of Guernseys, now, having 
bought 50 in April. They were purchased from Messrs. 
Shaw, Bowditch, Norton, Bowker, Hopewell Brothers 
and Moore. All were tested with tuberculin before 
we accepted them. We put in 700 tons of ensilage 
last fall, and bought enough cattle to eat it before 
another crop.” 
“ Shall you still keep the cows in the barn ?” 
“We shall not pasture at all, feeding ensilage all 
summer. We turn the cattle out in yards about three 
hours each 
morning, and 
when the hot 
weather comes 
expect to turn 
out at night and 
keep up the 
stock during 
the day. We 
have fitted the 
barn with 
blinds, and can 
make it quite 
dark and cool. 
We think that 
in this way we 
can avoid all 
trouble with 
heat and flies. 
With Buckley’s 
watering d e - 
vice we can 
keep water con¬ 
stantly before 
them. We have 
a watchman in 
the barn all the 
time, and also 
have thermo¬ 
stats hung about the building so that when the heat 
rises too high in any part, a gong is sounded outside. 
Even in case of another fire, we would be warned in 
time to get the cattle out.” 
The Food for the Cows. 
Raising 2,000 tons of ensilage at Ellerslie was almost 
as hard a job as collecting another herd. The best 
soil on the farm is given to lawns and groves. The 
land available for growing a crop is thin, poor and 
cold—largely in old meadows, some of which will not 
cut half a ton of hay to the acre. With the herd gone, 
of course, there could be no supply of manure, and 
the long, steep haul up from the river, put the cost of 
purchased stable manure entirely too high. When the 
barn was burned, Mr. Cottrell had 70 acres of ensilage 
corn growing. This had been grown with fertilizers 
on old meadow sod. Mr. Cottrell tried home mixing, 
but was not fully satisfied with it. The silos were re¬ 
built at once, and this ensilage corn cut into them 
before frost. Then 215 acres of old sod were plowed 
—the whole thing being done last fall. This spring 
an outfit of tools and 85 tons of fertilizer were pur¬ 
chased, and the whole area is now in corn. A disc 
% ' ■ 
The New Baen at Ellerslie Stock Farm ! Home of the Guernseys. Fig. 121. 
