1900 
THE RURAL! NEW-YORKER 
555 
Ailing Animals.' 
ANSWERS BY DR. F. L. KILBORNE. 
Enlarged Hock from Sprain. 
What should be done for a mare, which 
has a swelling at her hock, ana extending 
very slightly down the shank or cannon 
bone? The protuberance is about five 
inches In diameter, hard, extenas entirely 
around hock, and is said to have been 
caused by a severe strain. r. o. 
Bluffs, Ill. 
Blister severely with biniodide of mer¬ 
cury and cantharides (biniodide of 
mercury two drams, cerate of canthari¬ 
des ointment two ounces; mix). Repeat 
two or three times, if necessary, at in¬ 
tervals of a month or six weeks. If this 
fail to reduce the enlargement, have it 
fired by a competent veterinary surgeon. 
Hernia in Flank of Colt. 
I have a mare colt foaled June 5, 1900. 
It has a small breach about the size of an 
ordinary hen’s egg on the right flank. Is 
there any cure for it? I have been told 
that it will outgrow it, being so young. It 
has been there but a short time. e. h. r. 
Belleville, Mich. 
Apply a pad over the rupture, and re¬ 
tain in position by a wide bandage 
around the body. Should you be unable 
to keep the pad in position, blister the 
skin quite severely over the rupture with 
cerate of cantharides ointment, or two 
or three stitches can be taken through 
the skin to prevent the protrusion, and 
allowed to remain until adhesion has 
taken place. In stitching, care must be 
taken that the bowel is fully returned 
before inserting the stitches. The colt 
might outgrow it, but it will be better 
to reduce it now, instead of waiting. 
Tumor on Cow's Leg. 
We have a cow three years old; last Feb¬ 
ruary a small bunch, like a large pimple, 
came on her front leg, between the knee 
and foot on the cord on the outside of the 
ankle. This kept growing until it is about 
as large as a dollar, and is all raw. I 
have been using oil of vitriol on it, but that 
only dries it on the outside, but does not 
seem to make it any better. What is it, 
and what, if anything, can be done? 
TImberland, Wis. c. s. 
The bunch is probably a tumorous 
growth of some kind, but what, I am 
unable to say from your description. I 
suspect it will first be necessary to re¬ 
move the growth with the knife or caus¬ 
tic before it will heal. You might try 
an ointment of two drams of sulphate of 
copper rubbed up in an ounce of carbo- 
lated vaseline, applied twice daily; but 
if there is no improvement after a few 
days, I would advise taking the cow to 
a competent veterinary surgeon for op¬ 
eration. 
" THE PRICE OF MILK.” 
The New York daily papers are slowly 
realizing the truth about this milk ques¬ 
tion. The Evening Sun recently inter¬ 
viewed a wholesale dealer, who said: 
There are many attempts made to raise 
the price of milk when there is no real 
necessity for it. The farmers get together, 
and, after telling each other their troubles, 
decide that it is about up to them to push 
up the price of milk a fraction of a cent. 
The large dealers, rather than make any 
trouble humor them and pay a few cents 
more for a 40-quart can. The consumers 
never feel the raise, as the large dealers 
can afford to sell at the same price, though 
a small fraction of their profits is cut olt. 
In former years that would have gone 
unchallenged, but now the dairymen 
have champions who quickly call such 
“wholesalers” down. “A Jersey Milk 
Producer” answers this statement as 
follows: 
Here is the fact about the New York 
milk market in a very few words: The 
price of milk that is paid to the farmers 
whose product comes to New York City 
is fixed, not by any law of supply and 
demand, but by an arbitrary body 
known as the Milk Exchange. This cor¬ 
poration is not a real exchange such as 
the Stock and Produce exchanges are. 
That is, it does not buy and sell milk. 
Its sole business is to fix the price of 
milk to be paid to the farmers by the 
very men who fix it. A large majority 
of the directors of the Exchange are 
men who buy milk from the farmers and 
retail it in New York City and Brooklyn. 
It is easy to give their names. The Ex¬ 
change has a capital now, I think, of 
$25,000. This capital is not employed in 
the milk business, but is deposited with 
a trust company, and the interest re¬ 
ceived is the only income of the Ex¬ 
change as such. But it pays its mem¬ 
bers well. They get from eight to 10 
cents a quart for the milk they sell, as 
their customers know, and they fix the 
price they shall pay to suit themselves. 
Here is the price they allowed the farm¬ 
ers during 1899: January, 2% cents per 
quart; February, 2V 2 cents; March, 2 
cents; April, 2 cents; May, 1% to 1 y 2 
cent; June, 1% cent; July, 1% to 2 
cents; August, 2 cents; September, 2*4 
cents; October, 2% to 2% cents; Novem¬ 
ber, 3 cents; December, 3 cents. The 
statement about the farmers “getting 
together” and putting up the price i 3 
ridiculous. They have borne the dicta¬ 
tion of this Milk Exchange for years 
with only home protests, because it is 
almost impossible for farmers to “get 
together.” Prices even lower than those 
of 1899 ruled in the preceding years, 
with feed high, and no surplus supply. 
It has been no uncommon thing for this 
Exchange to meet and put down the 
price, as in the Spring of 1899, even 
when the supply was short and the pas¬ 
ture badly affected by drought, simply 
because they had been in the habit of 
making a reduction at that time. These 
are the men whose opinions are obtained 
by the reporters when anything is want¬ 
ed about the price of milk. 
During the last year an effort has 
been making by some of the farmers 
who supply New York to get a respon¬ 
sible company to take their milk, de¬ 
liver it to customers on business prin¬ 
ciples, which will include economy of 
service and strictly pure milk, and pay 
the farmers the fraction of a cent more 
per quart, which means a living profit to 
them. This project has not been car¬ 
ried out so far, but it is under favorable 
discussion still. This is the misnamed 
“milk tx-ust” that some of the papers 
have decried. In the discussion of this 
project it has been shown that enough 
farmers will refuse to send their milk 
to the city at Milk Exchange prices of 
the past to affect the supply, and this 
has been the cause of the slight increase 
of Summer prices by tne Exchange, not 
any recognition of the cost of produc¬ 
tion. The dealer quoted is right in say¬ 
ing that the consumer will not feel the 
rise. 
OILY BUTTER. 
What Causes It? The Remedy! 
A condition from which the butter 
might be termed “oily” may come from 
several different causes. The principal 
oils going to make up normal butter fat 
are olein, about 40 per cent, stearine and 
palmatine, about 50 per cent. Olein is 
the factor which tends to make the but¬ 
ter soft, the melting point being con¬ 
siderably below that of normal butter, 
while stearine and palmatine are the fac¬ 
tors tending to make It hard, the melt¬ 
ing point being considerably above that 
of normal butter. The combination of 
the two in the above proportions makes 
butter with a good texture. When from 
any cause there is an excess of either 
one, then we have butter either too 
hard or too soft. When the cow comes 
fresh in milk there appears to be a con¬ 
siderably larger proportion of the easier 
liquefying fats, the butter being quite 
soft; as she advances in lactation the 
butter gradually becomes more solid, 
and at the latter end of the period be¬ 
comes quite hard. Certain foods appear 
to have a tendency to change the tex¬ 
ture of the butter, clover, oil meal, and 
that class of foods making it soft, whila 
cotton-seed meal, Timothy hay, corn¬ 
stalks, etc., have the opposite effect. 
When the cow fresh in milk is put on 
the clover pasture it requires extra skill 
to avoid an oily condition in the butter, 
while if she had cornstalks and cotton¬ 
seed meal it would help materially in 
making the butter hard. 
The way the cream is obtained has a 
marked effect on the butter, other con¬ 
ditions being equal. When the milk is 
drawn from the cow the fat is liquid. 
If the cream is raised on pans in a cool 
cellar, or by submerging the milk in 
cold water the usual time for gravity 
creaming, the fat becomes thoroughly 
solidified, and there is very little trou¬ 
ble with oily butter. If, on the other 
hand, the cream is secured by using a 
centrifugal separator, and the cream 
never cooled below 58 to 60 degrees Fah¬ 
renheit, the fat is not as thoroughly 
solidified, and the result is oily butter. 
When the separator is used, the true 
way is to cool the cream at once to 50 
degrees Fahrenheit or below, and hold 
at that temperature at least two hours 
before ripening. The cooling may be 
done after ripening, but at some time 
during the process before churning the 
temperature must be reduced to 50 de¬ 
grees, and held at that temperature for 
a time, in order to solidify the fat, or 
the butter will be soft, with a tendency 
to be oily. Oily butter may come from 
the action of bacteria, but it is not 
usual; when it does, the butter will have 
a disagreeable taste and smell similar to 
lubricating oil. When everything about 
the place where the cows are kept is 
clean, and all milk utensils thoroughly 
washed and scalded, and the person 
doing the milking is cleanly in his work, 
there is little danger of bacterial trou¬ 
ble. Proper feeding of the cows, together 
with attention to correct temperature of 
milk and cream, and thorough cleanli¬ 
ness in all the detail work, will largely 
obviate trouble with oily butter. 
_o. A. SMITH. 
Soiling Cattle. 
Thousands of dairymen have succeed¬ 
ed in breaking away from the old sys¬ 
tem of keeping cows on meadow and 
pasture. Formerly large farms were 
considered necessary for successful dairy 
farming. Each cow required several 
acres for pasture, and several more to 
provide the hay for her Winter fodder. 
Common sense finally taught these men 
that by plowing up some of the old pas¬ 
tures and growing cultivated crops on 
them, they could greatly reduce the area 
required to produce the food for one 
cow. Instead of letting the cow wander 
over the pasture, spoiling far more food 
than she consumed, they kept her in a 
yard large enough for exercise, culti¬ 
vated crops in the former pasture, and 
carried the green food to the cow. What 
she failed to eat was cut and cured for 
Winter fodder. This in brief is the soil¬ 
ing system, and when it is connected 
with silage, the capacity of the farm for 
producing meat or milk is multiplied by 
four. We have said that thousands of 
farmers have found the value of this sys¬ 
tem, and tens of thousands have been 
looking about for information that shall 
help them follow it. We now have a 
book that appears to give just exactly 
the information these farmers need. It 
is entitled Soiling, Ensilage and Stable 
Construction, by F. S. Peer, of New York 
State. After careful examination, we re¬ 
gard it as one of the most practical 
books on dairy feeding and stable man¬ 
agement that we have ever read. It tells 
just how to go to work to change from 
pasture and meadow to soiling. We are 
told how to feed, how to make silage, 
how to arrange the barn to best advan¬ 
tage; in fact, every important point 
seems to be covered in a plain and prac¬ 
tical way. We seldom give high praise 
to any book on agriculture, but this 
book really seems to fill a distinct want, 
and we can recommend it to dairymen 
as useful. The price of the book is $1, 
and we can supply it at that figure. 
Hens, Cows and Butter. 
Will you let me know how many hens 
there were in the United States, and how 
many eggs in 1899? How many cows were 
there in the United States, and how much 
butter was made in 1899? j. r. d. 
Arters, Pa. 
Ans. —Estimates of poultry and eggs 
are little better than good guesses, but 
there are probably in the country to-day 
about 375,000,000 hens, which average 
not far from 60 eggs per year. The 
latest- returns from the Agricultural De¬ 
partment give 16,292,360 cows, valued at 
$514,812,106. The butter statistics are 
only estimates. There were probably 
sold and used on farms about 2,000,- 
000,000 pounds! 
Cured a Most Aggravating Cough. 
Mr. W. K. DUNLAP, Wolf Creek, Ala., March 
80, 1900, writes: 
My son came home last spring. An attack of 
measles had left him with the most aggravating 
cough I ever heard. His mother got a bottle of 
Jayne’s Expectorant, and gave it to him In large and 
three-quarter doses. By the time he had taken one 
bottle, and started on the second, HE WAS EN¬ 
TIRELY CURED of his cough. I cannot say too 
much of it in that case.— Adv. 
Cream Separators. 
De Laval “ Alpha " and “ Baby " Separators. 
First—Best^-Cheapest. All Styles—Slies 
Prices, SSO to $800. 
Save 110 per oow per year. Send for Catalogue. 
THE DE LAVAL SEPARATOR CO., 
Randolph and Canal Streets, I 74 Cortlandt Street 
CHICAGO I NJiW YORK. 
SEPARATOR Fi t 
|on to Days’Trial. Lightest^^^^ 
I easiest running HAND Separator 
\ NATIONAL Cnam 
Vi 
Separator 
Free book tells all about it. 
National Dairy Machine Co.. Newark. N. J. 
It’s in fhe Bottle, 
trade 
MARK 
I There’s more profit 
IH In milk If you use, 
f/ii\\\ thls bottle. Ouril-fp^wJ* ^ . /) 
lustrated free cat- J / / 
it. “Bestov” every-'- __ 
thing for dairy work. 
The Dairymen’s Supply Co., 1937 Market St., Phila. 
CREAM SEPARATORS 
ALWAYS THE BEST. 
TUB 8IURPLK8 CO, P. M. SIL4RPLKS, 
Chicago, 11U West Chester Pa. 
Strange how a man will take crop after crop oft the farm, putting nothing back, and then expect 
to be prosperous. If you handled the manure you have on the farm properly, results 
would be different and you should not need to be be buying commercial fertilizer. 
The KEMP MANURE SPREADER 
Will Double and Treble the Value of the Manure Heap. 
It spreads all kinds of fine and coarse manure evenly; makes no “skips;” does not dump a great 
load in one spot, but covers the entire ground evenly. Tears up coarse and lumpy manure and 
makes it fine. Better than anybody can do it by hand. Spreads lime, wood ashes, salt, etc., equally 
well. With the drill attachment it puts the manure direct into the open drill. Made in three con¬ 
venient sizes. Ask the opinion of anybody that uses one. Write for illustrated catalogue. 
Kemp & Burpee Mfg. Co., Bex 38, Syracuse, N, Ym 
