Vol LXII1. No, 2862. NEW YORK, DECEMBER 3, 1904. 
*1 PER YEAH, 
A DAIRY FARM IN OREGON. 
KALE AND CABBAGE FOR COWS. 
Fruit as a Side Partner.' 
OBJECT OF THE COMBINATION. 
—Cloveridge Farm consists of 320 acres of 
land, situated 30 miles from the city of 
Portland, Ore., six miles from the near¬ 
est town and two and one-half miles from 
the nearest village. About 240 acres are 
creek bottom land subject to Winter over¬ 
flow, but good hay land well adapted to 
dairying; the remainder foothill land 
splendidly adapted to fruit growing. In 
all about 190 acres are under cultivation, 
the other 130 being heavy timber and 
brush land of little or no present use as 
pasture. In order fully to understand 
dairying as carried on here it is necessary 
to refer briefly to the fruit-growing 
branch of the business. Thirty-five acres 
are devoted to fruit of various kinds, 
and one object in taking up fruit grow¬ 
ing was to furnish employment to a 
larger regular force of men than could 
he profitably employed in the dairy alone, 
thus making it possible to conduct a fair- 
sized dairy without having to work every¬ 
one connected therewith such excessive¬ 
ly long hours, as is customary on ex¬ 
clusive dairy ranches. 
SIZE OF DAIRY.—The dairy at pres- 
sent consists of 35 cows and 25 head 
of young stock, and four men are kept 
regularly by the year. Obviously two 
men should care for that many cows, but 
the fruit makes it possible profitably to 
keep the other two, and this, with my 
own help (which is, however, a little ir¬ 
regular), reduces the labor of milking to 
a point where it is not in the least ardu¬ 
ous, and as eight hours is counted a full 
day’s work in the field, the greatest ob¬ 
jection of hired men to working on a 
dairy ranch, that of long hours of milking 
after a hard day’s work in the field, is 
removed. These four men carry on all 
the regular work of the farm, extra help 
being required only in haying, harvesting 
and fruit-gathering times. There are no 
periods of great rush or enforced idleness 
for these regular men; they are paid good 
wages and furnished good board, thus 
coming as near to solving the vexatious 
help question as it is possible to do under 
present conditions. 
BUILDING AND HERD.—The barn 
shown at Fig. 396 is quite a large, well- 
built structure; the main building 80 by 
100 feet, the cow stable annex 36 by 75 
feet. The latter contains 40 Drown pat¬ 
ent stalls and is built with double walls, 
with the King system of ventilation. The 
floors behind the cows are watertight, 
and there are ample windows to furnish 
light. With this patent stall the cows 
are not tied at all; the stall is just wide 
enough (mostly 42 inches) to prevent the 
cow from turning around, and she is 
fastened with a chain hung behind her; 
the manger is adjusted to fit the length 
of each cow, forcing her to stand near 
the edge of the 10-inch drop, thus se¬ 
curing the greatest degree of cleanliness, 
combined with the greatest liberty and 
comfort. See Fig. 397. Although these 
stalls are somewhat expensive they are 
-4 
A SMALL FIELD OF KALE. Fig. 398. 
well worth the money. Straw is used 
very freely for bedding, and the liquids 
absorbed. Grain bins are built in the 
loft overhead, with chutes leading down 
to the feeding floor in the center. The 
two rows of cows stand facing each 
other with a 10-foot feeding floor be¬ 
tween, and the feed is carried along on a 
truck or cart. All the young stock is 
housed in the main barn. In one corner 
is an 80-ton silo, round, built of ? bv 4 
staves, with a Blizzard silage cutter and 
a roller feed mill, all operated by a six 
horse-power gasoline engine located in a 
shed outside, the power being transmitted 
by shaft and belting. The herd is com¬ 
posed of mixed Holstein and Jersey, 
starting in on a small scale nine years 
ago with a few purebreds and grades of 
each breed. Being entirely ignorant of 
the business, I was persuaded into buy¬ 
ing a Short-horn bull of a so-called milk¬ 
ing strain; the local butcher said he 
would take all the hull calves, and if I 
bought a Jersey he wouldn’t. Three or 
four years’ trial convinced me of the 
error: a good Jersey was substituted, and 
a choice bull of that breed kept ever 
since. Some few cows have been pur¬ 
chased, but nearly all have been raised on 
the farm, only the most promising calves 
being kept. The best of the original 
Holsteins are still in the herd, and some 
very good heifers have been produced 
from the Jersey cross. 
FEEDING RATIONS.—It took sev¬ 
eral years to learn that the feed was as 
important as the breed, the prevalent 
idea being that all a cow needed was a 
little pasture in Summer and a straw 
stack in Winter. The farm is peculiarly 
ill-adapted to pasturing, so in planning 
the year’s feed no account is taken of 
the pasture, but dependence placed en¬ 
tirely on soiling and feeding. A year’s 
feed will run about as follows: Begin¬ 
ning about May 1 on green rye and 
vetches, aiming to have about two weeks’ - 
feed of the rye mixture, followed by 
Winter wheat or oats and vetch, sown 
at different periods in the Fall from Sep¬ 
tember 15 to November. By cutting sec¬ 
ond crop on the earliest this feed will 
last till the middle of July. Then Spring- 
sown vetches, second-crop clover. Febru¬ 
ary sowing of oats and peas, and late- 
sown Spring oats in succession carry 
into September, when corn is ready. By 
October the corn is usually frosted, hut 
during that month there is generally a 
little pasture to be had on the stubble 
fields, and this is helped out by early- 
sown turnips. By November 1 the silo 
is opened and depended on for the main 
ration of green food for the Winter, 
though helped out at different times with 
hardy Winter turnips and kale (Thou¬ 
sand-headed cabbage), which can he left 
in the ground all Winter and gathered 
when needed. A light feed of dry hay 
is given every night during the soiling 
season and more abundantly during the 
Winter. A grain ration of ground oats 
or bran and oil meal is fed at all times 
to cows in milk, graded to suit the in¬ 
dividual cow’s performance at the pail, 
and ability to respond to increased feed. 
