P 13 !Q04 
FEED THE DAIRY COWS. 
UNPROFITABLE MILK.—The milk producer is 
having a siege, and already there are signs of dissolu¬ 
tion. No one can for a moment debate that prices for 
cheese and crude milk that are prevailing in the great 
dairy sections of New York this Summer are unprof¬ 
itable. We have had two years of exceedingly high 
prices and now comes the effort to restore an equilib¬ 
rium. It has, however, always seemed to me in the end 
unprofitable to permit the cows to lose in condition and 
vitality, and of course milk flow, in depressed times. 
Every dairyman knows that reduced vitality this year 
will as surely affect milk flow next year, as damaged 
foliage upon a fruit tree determines its usefulness the 
succeeding year. 
CAREFUL FEEDING NEEDED.—As soon as prices 
right themselves there will be an effort through high 
feed to correct this mistake, 
but it will not fully succeed. 
Indigestion and udder trou¬ 
bles come first, ami next 
the dwarfing of the delicate 
milk secreting organs means 
that food nutrients will seek 
other avenues, viz., flesh 
forming, and soon our 
otherwise good cow is turn¬ 
ing beefward, and never at 
a profit. But, says the critic, 
do you not advise less pro¬ 
duction? Now, while per¬ 
sonally I might not always 
become a party to reduction, 
it is of course the thing to 
do, but never by the means 
above described. Rather let 
the number be reduced to 
correspond to the owner’s 
judgment of reduced pro¬ 
duction, giving the remain¬ 
der what the whole would 
have received. One can al¬ 
ways pick out one in five or 
one in 10 that can be profit¬ 
ably spared, and in some 
herds the reverse order 
would prove true, having 
one left instead of four or 
nine respectively. Strange 
that we usually do our best 
work in dairy cow organiza¬ 
tion in times of prosperity, 
when often anything will 
pay. 
SELECTION IN 
DAIRY.—It seems to me to 
be a good time now to reorganize the dairy, not upon 
the starvation plan, but upon the plan of selection. The 
whole scheme of dairy cow development that should 
be carefully studied by cow owners becomes thwarted 
by these periods of insufficient food. The productive 
capacity of a dairy will eventually turn upon the dairy 
breeding of the owner, and not upon the breeding of 
his stock. A highly organized animal will for a time 
show her superiority, but time, and about 24 months, 
will do the work, and she is measured by the owner’s 
conception of feed and care. Look around and see if I 
am not right. I have just figured the milk from five 
cows bought last Fall, one a two-year-old heifer. Two 
of them came in November 1, and three December 1. 
I hey will freshen a few days later this Fall. The totals 
are as follows: 8,288 pounds, 8,259 pounds, 9,188 pounds, 
8,(i15 pounds, 7,010 pounds. These are only fairly good 
types. I hey cost $50 per head. They are now giving 
respectively 24 pounds, 22 pounds, 17 pounds, 22 pounds, 
16 pounds. It is easy to see that two of these cows will 
pass the 10,000 mark. These figures are not mentioned 
because they are large. We have cows giving far more, 
but they were picked up not for the records, because 
they had none, but they were fairly good dairy cows. 
They have had ideal care and feed; not crowded to see 
what could be done; worked as any man ought to work 
and grow stronger every day. Does any cow student 
dispute for a moment that when these cows freshen again 
they will start where they did last year? If they do 
not begin business at 10 pounds per day in advance all 
my former experience will be of no value. 
EFFECTS OF GOOD FEEDING.—What is-the re¬ 
sult of short rations under similar conditions? Just 
about half the milk, and nothing to begin with another 
year. Here are the results of thoroughly scientific cow 
education. It will not work upon every cow. If not, 
sell her; better have one good cow than one good and 
one inferior. When will milk producers learn that breed 
alone is at a double discount if constant everyday unre¬ 
mitting care and feed is not at hand? h. e. cook. 
WHY DO SOME FARMERS FAIL 
WHILE TniCIR NEIGHBORS SUCCEED? 
One Side of the Case Presented. 
TWO CONTRASTING CASES.—As 1 read of aban¬ 
doned farms, farming don’t pay, the oppression of the 
farmers, etc., I often set myself to studying the cause 
of these conditions. If farming as a business is an un¬ 
profitable vocation in general, why do we see such a 
difference in the condition of two farmers under appar¬ 
ently very similar conditions in the same neighborhood? 
I have in mind two farmers whose farms lie only 80 
rods apart, one consisting of 120 acres, the other of 140 
acres. How the owner of the former came by his land 
1 cannot say; the latter received bis by inheritance; but 
T do know that the former has within my own memory 
bought three additional farms consisting of from 80 
acres up to 120 acres, paying as high as $80 per acre, and 
this without receiving any financial aid aside from the 
income from his land. On the other hand, the man 
with 140 acres of better land was, the last 1 heard the 
matter discussed, $1,400 in debt and had failed to pay 
the interest due upon last sum borrowed. I know some 
may say these are extreme cases. This is undoubtedly 
true, but they show why some men claim farming doesn’t 
pay, while others seem to be accumulating, and have 
but little to say against their occupation. Some one, 
while reading this, has already said to himself that 
nothing has been said that really gives any idea as to the 
secret of one’s success and the cause of the other’s 
failure—nothing that will be of any benefit to the reader. 
One had a fixed purpose in view. He had found by 
experience that a certain kind of farming was suited to 
his land, and made him money, and lie stuck to this. 
The other followed a certain line of farming till lie 
heard of some one who had, under exceptional condi¬ 
tions, cleared more money 
on a certain crop than lie 
had been able to do with 
his crops. He at once jumps 
head-over-heels into raising 
this great money-making 
crop. Conditions are differ¬ 
ent, the season is unfavor¬ 
able, and results are disap¬ 
pointing; the change has 
cost him something and he 
has made nothing by the 
venture. 
KNOWLEDGE RE¬ 
QUIRED.—Many failures 
are due to a lack of knowl¬ 
edge of underlying princi¬ 
ples. This statement may 
seem a little obscure. What 
I wish to make plain is this: 
Farmers are apt to think 
that farming consists of 
simply sowing, reaping, 
as father or 
some one else did. They 
never stop to think that a 
certain field produces excel¬ 
lent pasture and hay, and 
should be used principally 
for those purposes, or that 
perhaps sheep, cows, hogs, 
poultry, fruit or trucking 
would be more profitable. 
They do not study condi¬ 
tions as nearness to market 
for certain crops; the adap 
tability of soil to growing 
such crops, and many other 
items that may mean much 
to them. We find men who seem to discover what they 
and their farm seem best adapted for, then they fail 
to go at it intelligently. The same old trouble. Any 
one can do that. A farmer attends the county fair and 
sees a fine display of poultry, becomes enthusiastic and 
buys some fowls which scored high in the show pen, and 
thinks success is inevitable. He does not see the neces¬ 
sity of studying the science of properly mating fowls, 
and soon has to face failure. He went at things blindly. 
MISDIRECTED ENTHUSIASM.—I know a man 
who became a dairyman (?) last Spring. He bought 
cows and began to haul oats and corn to the mill, and to 
stuff his cows with “chop feed.” His milk yield began 
to increase, as did his enthusiasm, and he vowed that he 
was going to keep on till lie reached a certain mark. He 
laughed at me because his 10 cows were doing as well 
as my eight. I told him to laugh if he wanted to; that 
I wasn’t trying to see how much milk l could get out 
of my cows, but how much money. This man was get¬ 
ting 65 cents for milk that undoubtedly cost him more 
