THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
May 8 
3i8 
Live Stock Matters 
A CHAMPION FOR SCRUBS. 
Dairying is a prominent branch of my 
farming. An important point to make 
it successful is the selection of cows. 
You unhesitatingly, unqualifiedly con¬ 
demn all scrub cows, while scrubs have 
been rather favorites with me. Though 
I am a little at a loss as to what you in¬ 
clude under the term scrub, yet in any 
sense in which it can be taken, if one 
wants a cow for milk, 1 would say look 
for it among scrubs in preference to 
seeking it among large, smooth, hand¬ 
some cattle. Look at our Jerseys, ad¬ 
mittedly the best butter cows we have, 
yet physically, they are a race of 
scrubs, and the scrubbiest of their race 
are the best cows. Similar statements 
might be made in regard to the Ayr- 
shires. But if scrub is intended to mean 
native stock and grades, I still insist 
that among them are good cows, though 
not so large a per cent as among cows 
that, for a series of years, have been 
bred for milking purposes. 
In this connection, allow me to state 
what I consider another fallacy which 
you are teaching, viz , that it is folly to 
keep anything but good cows, that it 
costs no more to keep a good than a poor 
one, and that it is just as easy to raise 
and have good cows as poor ones ; all 
that is necessary is to select good cows, 
buy a high-priced, registered bull and 
the thing is accomplished. No one will 
deny that this is the proper way to get 
extra good cows ; but in practice, there 
is great liability to disappointed hopes. 
From my own experience and what I 
have seen of others, I feel safe in assert¬ 
ing that the most expert stock raiser 
may select, we will say, 20 cows (they 
may be registered or grades or “na¬ 
tives”), breed them to the best pedigreed 
bull to be had, the heifer calves raised 
by him for cows will not make, on an 
average, as good cows as their mothers. 
And why not ? Because what is consid¬ 
ered a really good cow has been made 
such by select breeding, feeding, etc., 
and is in an abnormal state, a progeny 
of sports, and there is a very strong ten¬ 
dency to revert back to normal condi¬ 
tions. To obtain all the good cows that 
are desired, is far, very far, from being 
as simple a thing as represented. I f it 
were, dairymen would soon increase the 
percentage of good cows ; but as it is, 
the increase of percentage is, if any, 
very small. 
But feed has very much to do in the 
making of what is considered a really 
good cow. Something cannot come out 
of nothing. A cow cannot yield a large 
amount of rich milk without a large 
amount of rich food to make it of, and 
he is a very loose reasoner or careless 
thinker, who claims that it costs no more 
to keep a good cow than a poor one, or 
a cow that will make 300 pounds of 
butter per year than one that will make 
only 150 in a year. But there is some 
excuse for his not seeing that this extra 
cost of food equals the extra amount of 
product, and that there is no more profit 
in keeping a 400-pound cow, than two 
200-pound cows, as this depends on cir¬ 
cumstances. 
Let us consider the circumstances un¬ 
der which a majority of the cows in this 
country are kept. I think that, with a 
majority of farmers, the keeping of cows 
is rather a side issue of farming. There 
is necessarily in their farming operations 
a large amount of what might be em¬ 
braced in the general term “ roughage ” 
produced, such as corn fodder, straw, 
damaged hay, and a variety of bulky, 
unmerchantable products to be in some 
way disposed of, and cows are kept by 
them, to convert these waste products 
into available manure. This reduces the 
cost of the keeping of cows very materi¬ 
ally from what it would be if they had 
to pay out money for the cows’ food. 
Your registered Jersey, 400-pound cow 
has become, by habit and otherwise, 
physically incapacitated for this kind of 
food; she must have richer, more con¬ 
densed, more expensive food. Turn her 
out with native Brin to browse in the 
brush lot, or pick their winter’s living 
from the corn fields and straw stacks, 
and Brin will yield more butter in a 
year than Jersey. Now Brin with the 
farmers’ roughage and a little grain, 
may yield 200 pounds of butter per year ; 
Jersey, by having rich, concentrated, 
expensive foods and extra care may 
yield 400 pounds annually. But will the 
Jersey’s butter cost less per pound than 
Brin’s ? We will consider the cow merely 
a machine to work food into butter, 
also that there is a difference in ma¬ 
chines. That Jersey is physically so 
constituted that she can work twice as 
much grain into butter in a year as Brin, 
while Brin will work more roughage 
into butter than Jersey. Will it pay to 
work grain into 16 cent butter ? I think 
not. Which, then, is better for the 
farmer, the grain machine or the rough- 
age machine ? Which should he con¬ 
sider the “robber” and send to the 
butcher’s block ? Cephas breed. 
Tioga County, Penn. 
AILING ANIMALS. 
ANSWER SB Y DR. F. L . KILRORNB. 
Sow Eats Her Pigs. 
H. A. Or., Carlo . Pa .—My four-year-old sow far¬ 
rowed March 25. She has raised 50 piers, from 
9 to 11 at a litter. This time she had 12 and ate 
six of them, when one and two days old. What 
is the matter ? 
Various causes have been given, such 
as costiveness, inflammation of the 
womb, desire for salt and the taste of 
blood, as the reason why a sow eats her 
pigs. In some cases, it is, evidently, 
pure viciousness. Each breeder usually 
has a method of his own for preventing 
the habit. F. D. Coburn advises the ap¬ 
plication of kerosene with a woolen cloth 
to the hair of the young pigs, care being 
taken to get as little of the oil on the 
skin as possible. Sponging the pigs 
over with brandy, is said to prevent 
their being eaten by the sow. Before 
farrowing, the sow should be fed so as 
to avoid costiveness. Salt should, also, 
have been regularly provided. 
Cow With Hard-Milking Teat. 
E. H. L., Newkirk , 0. T .—My cow calved March 
5, and up to time of calving had always been a 
very easy milker. After calving, the left back 
tent seemed to be closed, but after much labor, I 
succeeded In getting milk started from that teat, 
but instead of being a free delivery as formerly, 
the orifice seems to be nearly closed, and it re¬ 
quires as much labor to milk that one teat as it 
would to milk any three cows that I have. I fre¬ 
quently have to use a knitting needle to get the 
milk started. The teat does not seem to be sore 
in any way, and the milk is as good as from the 
other teats. Is there anything I can do to enlarge 
the opening in this teat without injury to the 
cow ? 
The teat should be opened with a teat- 
slitter, an instrument made especially 
for that purpose. Then a lead probe or 
a small quill, not exceeding three-thirty- 
seconds of an inch in diameter, inserted 
and tied in the teat, to allow the teat to 
heal without closing again. The quill 
is to be removed at each milking, and 
after the second or third milking (24 to 
36 hours), should be left out. If at the 
following or a subsequent milking the 
opening is found to be closing, insert 
the quill again for 24 hours. If left in 
too long, there is danger that the open¬ 
ing will heal too large and the teat leak 
the milk. During the treatment, the 
milk is best drawn from that teat with 
a milking tube, although the milk can 
be carefully drawn by hand. Do not 
intrust the operation to any but a quali¬ 
fied veterinary surgeon. An empiric 
would be liable to make the teat worse, 
or ruin the quarter by exciting inflam- 
(Continued on next page.) 
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