Vol. LVI. No. 2450. 
NEW YORK, JANUARY 9, 1897. 
$1.00 PER YEAR. 
THE CATTLE INDUSTRY IN VIRGINIA. 
REEF MAKING AND DAIRYING. 
Novel Treatment for Cream; Southern Fever. 
The South, prior to the war, adopted a system of 
agriculture suitable to her social state, and the effort 
to produce cotton, tobacco and corn became so in¬ 
grained that, under the changed conditions, the dairy, 
to which many parts of the South are especially 
adapted, has had up-hill work in asserting its rights. 
Even now dairying as a business is carried on prin¬ 
cipally in the counties adjacent to the cities, or in 
those with good transportation facilities. The main 
object is to furnish milk and cream daily. Those who 
make butter usually have private customers to whom 
it is supplied once a week. In this locality, the Hol¬ 
stein is gaining favor as a milk producer. The Jersey 
is the favorite for butter or cream. But the cow of 
the South is a nondescript with, frequently, a little 
Jersey in her make up. With a good Holstein sire, 
the result is a much improved cow. In this section, 
we, some years, have to contend with murrain, and I 
find that, with some native blood, 
the cow is less liable to a fatal 
attack. In producing both milk 
and cream for the city market, I 
prefer the stock from a Holstein 
sire and Jersey cow ; such are 
docile, and give a fair quantity 
of rich milk. 
When buying feed, the aim is 
to get something to combine 
with the indispensable corn en¬ 
silage, and always with a view 
to increasing the fertility of the 
farm. For this, linseed and cot¬ 
ton-seed meals are the choice, 
though, as the latter is often 
adulterated, I have used, instead, 
whole cotton seed at $12 per ton 
with very satisfactory results. 
With 40 pounds of good corn en¬ 
silage, eight pounds of clover 
hay, four pounds of cotton seed, 
and all the corn stover they will 
eat, my cows yield more cream 
than with any other winter 
ration I have yet tried. I am 
satisfied that the grasses of this 
latitude are not as nutritious as 
the grasses of the northern 
States, but the long season dur¬ 
ing which forage crops can be 
grown for grazing is a great ad¬ 
vantage. Fall oats and Crimson clover often afford 
good pasture in March, and by sowing cow peas, at 
intervals from May to the end of July, we have pas¬ 
turage till frost, or about the middle of October, that 
cannot be excelled. 
Butter is made only in private dairies. Compara¬ 
tively few separators are in use. Southern people 
have a special liking for buttermilk, to obtain which 
in sufficient quantity the milk is churned with the 
cream. The barrel churn and Davis churn are much 
used, though the up and down dasher is not by any 
means extinct. A very small proportion of the but¬ 
ter consumed in our cities is made in the South. New 
York creamery butter is as well known as New York 
potatoes, and nearly all the cheese is imported. For 
want of ice, which is seldom more than three inches 
thick, though often stored at less, but some years is 
unobtainable, I have for three years had recourse to a 
simple yet effectual method of preserving the night’s 
cream sweet until delivered in the city, which is 
always 15 hours after being milked. The milk is run 
over a Star cooler as soon as drawn and heated to 80 
degrees the following morning for separation, which 
is done by steam power. I then place the cans con¬ 
taining the cream in a vat and turn the steam in. 
They are rapidly heated to 160 degrees, and allowed 
to stand at that temperature a few minutes, then re¬ 
duced to 60 degrees by running twice over the cooler. 
I was agreeably surprised to find, also, that the 
odor and flavor of garlic or wild onion, which weed is 
very plentiful in these parts in early spring and late 
fall, was entirely expelled by this process. If the 
onion flavor, or that of any other weeds, is very bad, 
I heat and cool the second time. Those who buy my 
cream are so pleased with it when treated this way, 
that I put it hrough the process, even when there 
are no objectionable taints. All or nearly all bacteria 
are destroyed at 160 degrees, and any disease germs 
that may be lurking in the cream are rendered inert. 
The steers that sell best in the cities of this part of 
the South weigh from 1,100 to 1,300 pounds, though 
cattle weighing from 500 to 800 pounds, and with two 
or more rings on their horns, are too numerous to be 
overlooked in our markets. These come mainly from 
the southeastern counties of this State, and show how 
degenerate a race of cattle may become when no care 
when there is the most danger, I give, once a week, 
to each grown animal, one quarter pint of spirits of 
turpentine with the same of kerosene and a little 
water. It is heroic treatment, which the animal shows 
it has not forgotten when you go to give it the second 
time. With a left horn of the proper shape I, with an 
assistant to measure the dose, have given it to 40 cows 
in an hour. The turpentine seems to permeate every 
cell of the animal. If it be a milch cow, the milk will 
be noticeably tainted. So obscure are the workings 
of this disease, that a too sudden conclusion may have 
to be retracted, but so satisfactory have been my ex¬ 
periments with this simple preventive, that I feel 
justified in suggesting it to those who are perplexed 
to know how to combat the disease. 
Chesterfield County, Va. alrekt it. redlwood. 
THE DEXTER COW “RED ROSE”. Fig. 11 
is given to breeding, and but little to feeding. Such 
cattle find a market at from two to three cents per 
pound. I find the Short-horn grade the most profit¬ 
able animal to raise for beef, though here we cannot 
raise steers for the same as we can buy those raised 
in counties distant from the markets and shipped 
here in the fall as stockers. By buying our steers in 
the fall, we are free from all danger of Southern 
cattle fever, which is a warm weather malady, and 
does not make its appearance at all during the colder 
months. There was a great demand for stockers last 
fall. They were bought largely by dealers, who dis¬ 
tributed them through the North to turn into beef 
the abundant and cheap corn. An observer here must 
conclude that beef will be low next spring. Corn en¬ 
silage, ground corn and oil meal make a good beef ra¬ 
tion, but with ensilage, ground corn and cow-pea hay, 
I can make cheaper. Then I am producing everything 
myself, and the cow peas catch more of the costly 
nitrogen than I would receive from the oil meal. 
While I am of the opinion that Southern cattle 
fever cannot often be cured after it has become ap¬ 
parent, I used a preventive to which I think I owe the 
immunity of a part of my herd. During the season 
A MASSACHUSETTS MILKMAN AND FLORIST. 
In September last, I interviewed, in the interest of 
The R. N.-Y., a wideawake florist and milkman, Mr. 
I. D. Howe of Southboro, Mass. Mr. Howe, at that 
time, was keeping 90 cows, 60 of which were soiled 
and kept up all the time, and the 
other 30 were pastured as an ex¬ 
periment. As a result of the ex¬ 
periment, those that were soiled 
in the stable varied but little in 
the quantity and quality of their 
milk from day to day, while the 
30 that were pastured, varied 
greatly both in quantity and 
quality, their milk often falling 
below the standard in quality, 
necessitating its being mixed 
with that of the soiled cows in 
order to bring it up to the stan¬ 
dard. Both herds experimented 
with consisted of ordinary cows, 
mostly bought at the Brighton 
market. 
Mr. Howe began the keeping 
of a herd of milch cows a few 
years ago, as a side issue to his 
market gardening and florist 
business, partly with a view of 
helping out the manure problem ; 
being located 20 miles from Bos¬ 
ton, it was too far to haul manure. 
The milk was formerly sold to 
the Boston milk contractors, but 
wishing, like any other sensible 
business man, to have something 
to say as to what his goods should 
be sold for, Mr. Howe last spring 
made a contract direct with two peddlers in the city, 
who have taken all his milk at an advance over what 
the contractors pay. This fall, when the contractors 
were screwing down the price to the producer, and 
piling up a surplus, the peddlers who took Mr. Howe’s 
milk wished him to come down on the price to them ; 
but they were told that, before he would make milk 
at a less price, he would sell every cow, and they 
finally concluded to keep on at the old price, as they 
had built up their trade upon the superior quality of 
the milk supplied them by Mr. Howe. 
One experiment that proved quite satisfactory was 
the spaying of several new milch cows. Of the three 
spayed, two did remarkably well, giving a large 
quantity of milk for several years, when they made 
excellent beef. The other one did not recover from 
the operation, and lingered along for some time, 
when she was killed ; a post mortem examination 
proved her to be affected with tuberculosis; appar¬ 
ently she was affected with the disease before the 
operation was performed, which prevented her re¬ 
covery. Mr. Howe believes that, with perfectly 
healthy cows, there is but little risk in the opera¬ 
tion. His inability to find a veterinarian who would 
