574 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
August 28 
Live Stock Matters 
APPLES AS COW FOOD. 
One of our readers in Orange County, 
N. Y., asks the following question : 
“ Would it be profitable to set an orchard of 
good-bearing and loner-keeping apples, as, for 
instance, Ben Davis, which iB not of good qual¬ 
ity, and use the fruit as a food crop to store for 
winter feeding milch cows ?” There are a num¬ 
ber of apples which yield heavily and keep well, 
yet which do not sell well in ordinary seasons. 
From your experience, do you think there is any 
sense in this man’s proposition ? Would it be 
profitable under any circumstances, to raise a 
crop of Buch apples for cow feed 1 
Pretty Rough on Ben Davis. 
If raising apples for cows, why not 
raise a variety good enough so that eat¬ 
ing them will not cause their teeth to 
get sore? Mice will not eat Ben Davis 
unless in the last stages of starvation. 
Why force cows to do so ? Why not 
choose a variety just as productive, and 
of much higher feeding value ? Nine 
years out of ten, apples fit for cow food, 
and that would keep through the win¬ 
ter, will sell for several times as much 
as they are worth for cow food. Even 
in the great glut of last year, good 
apples were worth, drawn to the can¬ 
nery or evaporator, at least $4 per ton, 
while the feeding tables make them 
worth only about $3 as compared with 
corn at $20. 
Of course, with the small apples and 
less valuable sorts, when there is a great 
glut, it is better to feed them than to 
let them rot or turn them into cider ; 
but to plant an orchard with the object 
of growing stock food, is another thing, 
and I would not advise it. I would 
much prefer to build a silo and grow 
corn to fill it, and sell the apples. 
On page 191, of The R. N.-Y., is an 
article from me detailing my experience 
in feeding small apples to breeding 
sows, and several have since written me 
asking the result on the broods of pigs. 
One man went so far as to say that he 
“ was sure that the result on the litters 
would satisfy us that so many apples 
and so little dry food was not a suitable 
ration for breeding sows.” All the sows 
have farrowed, and the average number 
of pigs raised to the sow, was over 
eight. It would have been more only 
that two sows had but five each, and an¬ 
other had but six. One had 19, but as 
she had accommodations for only 12, 
and no other with the small litters far¬ 
rowing about the same time, we had to 
destroy or give away the surplus. We 
never had sows do better or raise nicer 
pigs, and are more than pleased with 
the experiment of wintering sows on 
apples. J. s. WOODWARD. 
Not a Satisfactory Food. 
Apples are worth, for feeding pur¬ 
poses, from three to five cents per bushel, 
if fairly ripe and fed in limited quan¬ 
tities. If one gets continuously a good 
crop, the land must be cared for, the 
trees sprayed and trimmed and ferti¬ 
lized. It is self evident that even the 
Ben Davis apple cannot be profitably 
grown and used as cattle food. Profits 
are not secured at the present time by 
doing the easy things, but in carrying 
on those which are difficult. Far better 
raise some variety of apple adapted to 
the locality, which brings a good price, 
and fight bugs and blights to the bitter 
end. For instance, friend Willard has 
a large crop of fine gooseberries, but he 
had to fight for them. It is said that he 
sprayed them five times in one day. Be 
that as it may, he has a good crop of 
high-priced berries, while some of his 
neighbors have none, neither will they 
have any next year. Some of these 
fruit raisers realize this, and are digging 
up their bushes. They may plant in 
their stead artichokes or Ben Davis 
apple trees. 
“ Have we ever bad any experience 
in feeding apples ? ” Yes, we have tried 
feeding them several times, always with 
unsatisfactory results. A few ripe sweet 
apples are relished, especially by horses 
and colts, and when fed in connection 
with dry food, they appear to act as an 
appetizer; but when fed to cows or 
horses in quantities sufficient to take 
the place of other foods, their effects are 
not beneficial. i. p. Roberts. 
Ensilage is Better. 
I have not found hard, sour winter 
apples of very much value as a milk 
producer. Without making a careful 
test, I would prefer 100 pounds of good 
corn ensilage to a bushel of such apples. 
I have tried feeding apple pomace, which 
I could get fresh daily during the cider¬ 
making season, but after a trial, I con¬ 
cluded that it was not worth hauling 
home. Apples might be worth what it 
would cost to pick them up if fed in 
connection with dry food ; but if fed 
with ensilage or other succulent food, I 
would hardly consider them worth hand¬ 
ling. I find apples better for pigs than 
for cattle. 
If I were to set out an orchard with 
that end in view, I would select some 
sweet variety; but in my opinion either 
would be a losing operation. If it is 
desirable to set the land to orcharding, 
I would select the best market varieties 
suited to that locality. It would cost 
no more for the stock-setting and after 
cultivation; then when they had a mar¬ 
ket value, I would sell and buy other 
food for cows. If the apples were to be 
kept any length of time, they would 
have to be hand-picked, as no variety 
with which I am acquainted, will keep 
for any great length of time if shaken 
from the trees and roughly handled. 
To hand-pick apples and store in the 
cellar, costs from 4 to 10 cents per 
bushel, according to the yield, height 
of trees, distance to be hauled, etc. 
Then there must be added the use of 
land, cost of setting, care until they 
reach a bearing age, the annual trim¬ 
ming and cultivating. This would bring 
the cost, as near as I am able to estimate, 
at not less than 10 cents per bushel, 
averaging one year with another. 
Chautauqua County, N. Y. l. d. gale. 
COWS IN DRY WEATHER AND FLY 
TIME. 
In a certain town, there are two farms, 
one on the north side of the road and 
the other on the south. Both farms 
have daily supplied a creamery with the 
milk from 12 cows during the past three 
years. The pastures on each farm, in 
July and* August, attain about the same 
degree of barrenness; the sun shines 
with equal intensity on both, the rain 
fails to beat upon either of the pastures 
or on the cows, and the latter are griev¬ 
ously tormented with flies. While both 
herds are exposed to the same unpleas¬ 
ant conditions during the day, there is 
one important difference in their treat¬ 
ment after they are gathered into the 
barns at night. 
Those on the north side of the road 
enter a gate on the west and go thence 
across a dry barnyard to the neatly 
whitewashed stable ; there they find 
green feed and grain before them. At 
the present time, this feed consists of 
green corn and 35 cents’ worth of corn 
meal per day. In return for this feed, 
these cows gave, August 1, 1897, 234 
pounds of milk, which tested 4.5 per 
cent fat. making a total of 10 % pounds 
of butter fat. This was worth, at that 
time, 14 cents per pound and amounts 
to $1.47. 
When the cows on the south-side farm 
return at night, they are given no green 
feed or grain ; the mud from the pond 
hole in which they have been standing 
all day is only partially cleaned from 
their udders and flanks at milking time, 
and the dirty, switching tail of the cow 
makes a cloud of dust, a portion of which 
is sure to get into the milk. The lack 
of whitewash in this cow stable, together 
with the pond hole and other failures to 
comply with printed regulations sup¬ 
plied both farms, makes at this creamery 
a difference of four cents per 100 pounds 
between the grade of milk supplied by 
this south-side farm and that from the 
north side of the road. But if the same 
price of 14 cents per pound of butter 
fat is paid both lots of cows for their 
milk, their reward is not the same per 
cow as that received from the north-side 
cows. On this particular day, these 12 
south side cows gave 171 pounds of milk, 
which tested 4.3 per cent fat, making a 
total of 7.4 pounds of butter fat, and this 
at 14 cents per pound amounts to $1 03. 
The south-side cows were not fed any¬ 
thing when brought to the barn, but 
milked and left by the barn side to 
wander or to wonder why their milk had 
fallen off 42 pounds in a week, and their 
neighbors only 24 pounds. 
The 12 cows on the north farm were 
given green feed and grain each day, 
and their milk amounts to enough to 
pay their owner $1 47, which is 44 cents 
more per day than the other man re¬ 
ceived from the same number of cows 
kept on dry pasture only, in dry weather 
and fly time. e. h. farrington. 
University of Wisconsin Creamery. 
CREAM FOR NEW YORK CITY. 
At the present stage in the develop¬ 
ment of city dairy supplies, no product 
will allow of as much improvement as 
the cream supply, for consumption 
in private families as well as for manu¬ 
facturing purposes. The Medical Record, 
Volume 52, No. 5 (July 31), under the 
heading of General Medicine, has a very 
able article by Dr. Huddleston, which is 
an extract of his carefully prepared 
treatise upon The Consumption of Cream 
and a Consideration of Establishing a 
Standard, which was read at a recent 
meeting of the New York Medical So¬ 
ciety. From this article, we can justly 
infer that the medical men of the Metrop¬ 
olis are demanding a cream which shall 
be strictly uniform as to the percentage 
of butter fats contained therein, as well 
as its being of a standard age and of 
superior flavor. 
The cream now obtained in the gen¬ 
eral dairy depots varies in the amount 
of butter fats contained therein, the 
amount averaging from 10 to 50 percent. 
A cream containing 30 percent of butter 
fat is considered as rich cream, and can 
be used for whipping purposes. The 
Sheffield Farms Co., which has made a 
specialty of supplying cream to New 
(Continued on next page.) 
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