Vol. LVIII. No. 2589. 
NEW YORK, SEPTEMBER 9, 1899. 
$1 PKR YEAR. 
THE COW AS A MANUFACTURER. 
WHAT SHE HOES WITH HER FOOD. 
How She Beats Her Brother Steer. 
WONDERFUL LITTLE COW.—The term manufac¬ 
turer is used here 'in an illustrative way, and is cor¬ 
rectly applied in the sense that the cow manufactures 
milk solids out of hay and grain or other raw ma¬ 
terials. How many readers of The R. N.-Y. fully ap¬ 
preciate the wonderful transforming power of the 
bovine mother, which was given to her primarily that 
she might feed her young, and which man’s skill in 
breeding has developed far beyond the needs of its 
original purpose? While I was at the Maine Experi¬ 
ment Station, we carried on a study of several dairy 
breeds. Among the animals which were tested, was a 
little Jersey cow, Agnes, weighing about 870 pounds. 
She was neither remarkable nor unusual, but was 
simply a high type animal, of which we have in this 
country many equally as good. I take her as an il¬ 
lustration of what a cow can do, simply because we 
measured her work, and I can re¬ 
fer to her performance without 
danger of error, and as one that 
is attainable by first-class ani¬ 
mals. 
Between September 13, 1888, 
and September 18, 1890, Agnes 
gave 13,080 pounds of milk con¬ 
taining 1,975 pounds of solids, or 
6,540 pounds of milk per year, 
containing 987 pounds of solids. 
Taken as a simple statement, 
this production seems scarcely 
worth comment. Let us look at 
it in the light of comparison. As 
stated, this cow weighed about 
870 pounds. She was rather 
lean, and her tissues undoubted¬ 
ly contained as large a propor¬ 
tion of water as Lawes & Gil¬ 
bert’s “well-fed ox,” so that the 
dry matter in her entire body 
would not be over 295 pounds. It 
is clear then that Agnes manu¬ 
factured in a single year milk 
solids equivalent in weight to the 
dry matter in the bodies of at 
least 3.4 cows of her size and 
composition. 
AHEAD OF THE STEER.—It 
is also interesting to note how 
this little cow’s productive ca¬ 
pacity measured up to that of 
her brother steer. In 1895, the 
Maine Experiment Station analyzed the entire bodies 
(skin excepted) of two steers weighing alive 1,300 
pounds and 1,280 pounds. These animals were about 33 
months old. It was found that their bodies contained 
475 pounds and 449.6 pounds of solids, an average of 
462 pounds. This puts the steer in a rather bad plight 
as a manufacturer, for it shows that it took him 2% 
years to construct as large a quantity of animal solids 
as the cow produced in about 5 3-5 months. But the 
case is even worse than this, for milk sol'ids are 
wholly edible, whereas only 58.3 per cent of the dry 
matter of these steers’ bodies was found to be so. 
This being true, and edible milk solids having about 
five-sixths the energy value of edible beef solids, the 
cow accomplished as much in one day towards sup¬ 
plying the human family \. ith motive power as the 
growing steer did in %y 2 days. Assuming that it cost 
half as much to feed the steer from calfhood to the 
age of three years as did the cow for the same 
length of time, the food cost of beef as human food 
was, in the cases cited, four times that of milk. It 
seems, then, that as a transmuter of “the grass of the 
field” into a high-grade animal food for human con¬ 
sumption, the cow and the steer are not in the same 
class. 
FUEL AND FOOD.—All manufacturers operating 
machinery find it necessary to use fuel in order to 
obtain motive power, and our cow is no exception to 
this rule. There were many days when Agnes ate ap¬ 
proximately 15.5 pounds of digestible dry matter, and 
gave 20 pounds of 15.5 per cent milk. Some of this 
food was returned in the milk solids, but the larger 
part was burned as a source of energy to run the 
cow’s machinery and keep her body up to its normal 
temperature. 
We measure the energy of food by a heat unit which 
we call a calorie, this representing the heat necessary 
to warm one pound of water through four degrees 
Fahrenheit. In terms of work, this heat is equivalent 
to 1.53 foot ton, or the raising of 1.53 ton to the height 
of one foot. The available energy in Agnes’s daily 
food amounted to 30,000 calories, or over 45,000 foot 
tons. The energy of the daily nnik solids was about 
8,000 calories, leaving 22,000 calories to be used to run 
the manufacturing machinery and furnish body heat. 
Dr. Armsby and others have found that a 1,000-pound 
steer doing no work and making no growth, needs a 
daily energy equal to 13,000 calories, and doubtless, 
our cow under similar conditions when not giving 
m'ilk would need no more. This leaves 9,000 calories 
to be charged up against the specific effort of milk se¬ 
cretion. In other words, the work of producing milk 
after allowing for milk solids and the usual wear and 
tear of the body, requires the combustion of three- 
tenths of the nutrients digested from an ordinary 
milk ration. 
MxLK YS. BEEF.—The greater food cost of beef 
over m'ilk works itself out in commercial conditions. 
When the New York city millionaire buys hygienic 
milk for his growing boys and girls (if he happens to 
have any), at eight cents per quart, and tenderloin 
steak for himself at 25 cents per pound, he pays from 
25 to 26 cents for a pound of edible milk sol'ids, and 
not far from 61 cents for a pound of edible beef solids, 
or in proportion to the energy value of the two foods, 
practically twice as much for the beef, as for the milk 
sol'ids. The same general relation holds in our vil¬ 
lages where milk sells for five cents and decent steak 
for 15 to 18 cents. Milk is unquestionably the cheap¬ 
est high-class animal food which the market offers. 
This is a truth not generally appreciated by the pub¬ 
lic. To the rich, it is not an important matter, but 
to our laboring classes in restricted or moderate cir¬ 
cumstances, it is. Yet how often we find a mechanic’s 
wife priding herself on her economy in purchasing 
but little milk, and then freely patronizing the butch¬ 
er’s cart at current prices. Even the families of the 
farmers who produce the m'ilk, often use it as an ar¬ 
ticle of diet in very limited quantities. 
Certainly a cow is an economical accessory to every 
family where one may be kept conveniently. As a 
rule, the cost of food and care is less than the cost 
of milk from the peddler’s cart, and for this reason, 
any mechanic who can do so will practice economy 
in keeping a good cow, espec¬ 
ially when he can dispose of his 
surplus milk to his neighbors. 
THE RAW MATERIAL.—It 
is worth while to inquire what 
relation there is between the 
raw materials used by the cow 
for the production of milk and 
by the steer for growth. The 
elaborate experiments of Lawes 
& Gilbert and others have 
taught us that, so far as animal 
fat is concerned, the steer can 
build it from the cheapest and 
most abundant class of ma¬ 
terials which the farmer pro¬ 
duces, viz., the carbohydrates. 
For many years the source of 
milk fat was in doubt, most ag¬ 
ricultural chemists inclining to 
the view that it was formed 
either from the food fat or pro¬ 
tein, or both. Now we are war ¬ 
ranted in the statement that the. 
steer has the cow at no disad 
vantage, for it appears that she 
is able to make 25-cent butter 
from the same raw materials 
that the steer uses in producing 
five-cent suet. There is still a 
general agreement that, so far 
as muscular tissue and casein 
are concerned, they have a com¬ 
mon origin in the food proteids. 
Now how shall we care for this wonderful food 
maker? First, we should treat her kindly, even with 
a touch of affection, for she will respond with affec¬ 
tion, and will yield willingly her daily tribute to a 
considerate master. She has a sensitive nervous sys¬ 
tem—the better the cow, the more highly strung. 
The man or boy who kicks her should be made to 
blush with shame, for he is not a fit companion, much 
less a proper caretaker, of this friendly brute. We 
must feed her well, not too well, but enough. Let us 
keep her quarters neat, clean and comfortable, and 
give her sunlight and pure air. We must not tie he) 
by the head all Winter long, with no chance for exer 
cise, but we should allow her to tone up her physical 
condition by a judicious amount of liberty. It is time 
to put our foot upon the fad of giving cows no Winter 
exercise, especially those that are to be mothers of 
future cows. If we do all these things, and then our 
cows do not do their share to help feed and support 
us, it will be because we own the wrong ones. 
New York Exp. Station. w. h. Jordan. 
BABY MILK MACHINES AND THEIR TRAINER. Fig. 238. See I’age 650. 
