798 
NOV. 22 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
WINTER TREATMENT OF DAIRY HERDS. 
HOW FIRST-CLASS COWS ARE CARED FOR. 
A subscriber in Ohio recently sent us the following note. 
“Will you ask some of the best winter dairymen to tell us 
how they care for their winter milking cows in October 
and November to get them ready for winter ? 
When do they begin to stable their cows ? 
What do they use for a soiling crop ? 
What grains are fed ? How much up to the time of 
beginning of the regular winter care. 
Answers to these questions follow : 
Cows Stabled the Entire Year. 
It is our custom to stable our cows the entire year, that 
is, to put them in the stable morning and night, where 
they are fed their regular rations of ensilage and ground 
feed. It is our intention to feed right through the summer; 
though not quite as much in the summer as in the winter. 
For a soiling crop, we use Red Clover and rye. V e feed 
corn meal, bran, gluten meal and shorts the entire year. 
Kane County, Ill. otman BROS. 
^ Cows Need Stables When You Need Fires. 
i commence to stable my milch cows at night as soon as 
we want fires in the house, and as soon as the ground is 
frozen, or about the first of December, I keep them in the 
stable continually till about the first of April. For early 
soiling after clover I use oats, peas and barley sowed to¬ 
gether ; this crop is followed by blue sweet corn planted in 
hills the same as for grain. I begin to feed it as soon 
as the ears are large enough to be boiled for the table. 
This is followed by a larger variety of sweet corn, which is 
in turn succeeded by corn ensilage made from State and 
sweet corn, and with that I commence my winter feed. 
While my cows are in pasture and my soiling crops are 
good I feed no grain. Wken the corn is not well eared I 
feed shorts. My principal ration in winter is ensilage 
made from well-eared Learning Corn, supplemented with 
about five pounds daily of mixed or clover hay. The 
grain ration consists of shorts and cotton-seed meal mixed 
—100 pounds of meal and 200 pounds of shorts. If the ensil¬ 
age is not rich in corn I add 100 pounds of corn meal to 
100 pounds of cotton-seed meal and 400 pounds of shorts. I 
vary the feed, giving each cow only what she will eat and 
assimilate. My cows are fed for butter. WM. H. GILBERT. 
Secretary of N. Y. State Dairymen’s Association. 
Comfort Indispensable to Success. 
My winter milking cows come in in September and 
October, as that is about the season when butter begins 
to bring a good price. Some of them come in somewhat 
later. During September they run at pasture except on 
frosty nights or in cold and rainy weather, when they are 
kept in the stable. In fact, they are kept in a comfortable 
stable whenever the weather is such that a man would 
teel uncomfortable out-of-doors, for I believe that comfort 
for the cow is one of the conditions indispensable for success 
in dairying. During October they are regularly kept in 
the stable at night, and run out only when the weather is 
fine. For soiling crops I use, first in September, second- 
crop clover and then fodder corn planted thin enough to 
be well eared, and run through a feed-cutter. In addition, 
each cow has daily about eight pounds of wheat bran in 
two feeds. The regular winter care may be said to begin 
about November 1, when my silo is opened, and each cow 
is fed from 30 to 35 pounds of ensilage made of corn so well 
eared that each will get about the equivalent of four 
pounds of dry corn, or corn meal daily, In addition, the 
cows have all the dry corn fodder and early cut clover hay 
they will eat, and, also, from eight to ten pounds of wheat 
bran. If oats are as cheap as they were last year, ground 
oats are substituted in part for bran and make just as good 
a ration. 0* p - Goodrich. 
‘ Jefferson County, Wis. 
Apples, Pumpkins, Ensilage and Oil Meal. 
1 aim to have one third of my dairy cows come fresh in 
October and November and rely mainly on pasture for a 
forage crop. As soon as frosts come in the fall, or the pas¬ 
tures get short and dry, I commence to feed milkers from 
three to ten pounds each of corn meal, bran and 
ground oats in equal parts, per day. About three weeks 
before a cow comes fresh, I commence feeding her, once 
each day, a pint of the above feed, with a handful of oil 
meal added, and this ration is gradually increased until 
she is eating from two to four quarts, according to her 
a ge, per day, when she drops her calf. A cow that is fed 
a little oil meal and is gaining slowly in flesh when she 
comes in, very rarely, if ever, fails to do well. My cows 
feed on the pasture during the day-time, but are kept in 
the stables on frosty or cold and rainy nights, and are fed 
through these two months all the bright, early-cut clover, 
or clover and Timothy hay they will eat, the pasture fur¬ 
nishing green feed enough to keep up a good flow of milk, 
and I rely upon the green food in the silo as soon as 
winter sets in, and the cows are stabled night and day. 
Through these two months, I usually have apples, or 
pumpkins or both, to feed to cows, each getting a daily 
allowance of from 10 to 20 pounds of chopped apples and 
pumpkins, and from three to six pounds of bran and corn 
meal in two rations. °* p - LAIRD. 
Trumbull County, Ohio. 
No Grain With Good “ Eary ” Ensilage. 
I give my winter milkers ordinary pasturage during 
October and till cold weather in November. As soon as 
the weather becomes rough and unpleasant in the fall 
(which was about October 15 this year), I keep them in at 
night, and give them a generous feed of ensilage or green 
corn both night and morning. For a soiling I use corn ensil¬ 
age, fed either whole or cut. With regard to the amount 
of grain fed, circumstances govern that altogether. With 
milk at 14 cents per gallon and bran at $18 per ton, I shall 
use no grain. Could I buy bran at $12 I would use it lib¬ 
erally. My cows do fairly well on good ensilage and hay. 
1 have never had so large a proportion of corn (grain) in my 
ensilage as this year, and I think I can make milk without 
other feed. B. A. ROBINETTE. 
Summit County, O^iio. 
MORE ABOUT SEEDLING FRUITS. 
Regarding the questions asked on page 754, I would say 
that, to ascertain whether, in bad years, seedling apple 
trees outbear grafted trees, it would be necessary to make 
observations with regard to the seedling trees and other 
trees grafted, with the same variety, as it would be 
obviously unfair to compare different varieties with each 
other. A seedlihg tree, grown from seed of a Baldwin or 
Ben Davis Apple, would be a different variety from either, 
and it would be folly to expect a comparison of the bearing 
qualities of these in an off year, or any other, to decide the 
question of the relative'bearing qualities of seedling or 
grafted trees. Grafts from a seedling tree set in half a 
dozen other trees would hardly all be likely to show the 
same results, owing to the greater or less vigor of some, or 
to the fact that their surroundings were not exactly alike, 
All of our choice fruits were originally seedlings, and 
budding or grafting is the means employed to multiply 
them. If apples and pears could be multiplied by cuttings, 
like the currant, grape or quince, the stocks could be du¬ 
plicated indefinitely, and after the first remove from the 
parent seedling all would be alike ; but even then I fail to 
see why or how grafting should materially affect the bear¬ 
ing qualities, except through the influence the stock might 
possibly exert, and this might vary. When we consider 
that the probable chance of success in growing a seedling 
that would be an improvement on its parent is about as 
one to 500 or 1,000 failures, the pastime seems far from en¬ 
couraging to a person well advanced iu life. 
As to the second question—whether our experimenters 
have erred in preferring seed exclusively from our best cul¬ 
tivated varieties; or whether they would presumably have 
succeeded better with seed from choice seedling fruit s—it is 
not easy to determine. Let us look briefly at what has al¬ 
ready been done in this direction. 
Dr. Yon Mons, the famous Belgian, devoted a long life 
to the improvement of the pear by growing seedlings. His 
theory was that seedlings from old trees were more likely to 
revert back towards the original than were seedlings from 
young trees; that seedlings from the latter were less likely to 
retrograde, and that by growing seedlings from seedlings as 
soon as they could be fruited, each generation would fruit 
earlier than the previous one, the fifth generation of the pear 
producing fruit in three years and most of them of improved 
quality. According to this, apples require but four vener¬ 
ations; peaches, plums and cherries but three to give sim¬ 
ilar results. He gathered his seed before it was fully ripe 
and pruned his trees severely, claiming that by these 
processes be reduced and toned down the tendency of the 
trees toward vigorous growth, thus contributing to the de¬ 
velopment of the fruit. 
Duhamel, an eminent French authority, is on record as 
saying that he had been planting seeds of the finest table 
pears for 50 years without ever producing a good variety. 
This confession might certainly be taken as favorable to 
You Mons’s theory. 
But coming to our own country, Mr. P M. Gideon, of 
Minnesota, may be regarded as one of the pioneers in grow¬ 
ing seedlingtrees for the purpose of securing new varieties. 
His labors have been confined, I believe, exclusively to the 
apple. The climatic environments of Wisconsin and Min¬ 
nesota render hardiness of tree the very first requisite to 
success, and to secure this he uses the Siberian crab as the 
foundation. Probably the best known of his productions 
is the Wealthy, which he grew from Cherry crab seed: since 
then he has grown thousands of seedlings and, five years 
ago. claimed to have produced 46 first-class varieties, or 
one to about from 300 to 500 see lings—surely a good many 
blanks to one prize. His process, to use his own words, “was 
and is yet, the crossing of the common apple with those 
varieties that have enough of the Siberian crab in the 
composition of the tree to make it what we term an iron¬ 
clad, and we do this by close planting, so that wind and 
bees and other insects can the more readily and surely 
carry the pollen from bloom to bloom and from one variety 
to another, so as to fertilize the germ of the fruit. The 
seed so fertilized we plant, and when the young trees are 
large enough to be set in orchards, we select the best and 
then wait to see what the fruit will be ; but it is not every 
seed that will produce a good apple, for no two seeds will 
be fertilized just alike, hence no two trees will be just alike, 
even from seeds of the same apple.” 
THE RURAL sent out thousands of Niagara Grape seeds 
to its subscribers some years ago. What came of them ? 
No remarkable results followed that I have heard of. The 
results attending these life long experiments with chance 
or naturally fertilized seeds, according to the experiment¬ 
ers’ own confessions, be they from natural or the best im¬ 
proved fruits, do not to me seem to offer very flattering 
hopes of speedy success. It is true many, if not most, of 
our most popular fruits are really chance products ; but 
artificial crossing or hybridizing seems to me the shortest 
and most promising road to the end desired. If stock- 
breeding were conducted on such a chance basis, where 
would our fine herds of cattle, horses, swine, etc., be to day? 
The ultimate object of Nature seems merely to be the re¬ 
production of the plant, and science intelligently applied 
shows conclusively that these reproductions can be meas¬ 
urably controlled in certain directions, thus shortening 
the road to success and increasing the possibilities of it— 
both important factors to those who would venture into 
this field of experiment. 
The late beloved Marshall P. Wilder repeatedly said : 
“ Plant the most mature and most perfect seeds of the 
most hardy, vigorous and valuable varieties, and, as a 
shorter process insuring more certain and happy results, 
cross or hybridize your best fruits.” Good advice! And 
taking the examples and experiences of the past into con¬ 
sideration, I would most certainly take my chances with 
artificial crosses, rather than trust to the hap-hazard and 
uncertain methods of Nature’s operations. Of the thou- 
s inds of seedlings grown from the Concord Grape as fer¬ 
tilized by Nature, how few have been even worthy of a 
name, and only one, the Worden, do I deem worthy to be 
considered its superior in all respects—quality, vigor, 
size and hardiness. All others f3.il in some one or more 
p irticulars. E - WILLIAMS. 
Essex County, N. J. 
NOTES FROM FRUIT RIDGE FARM. 
Manufacturing Fat Mutton. 
SECRETARY J. S. WOODWARD. 
The “ Lambert ” in Full Operation.— Why not coin a 
new word ? If the place where we raise pigs is a “pig¬ 
gery,” why not call the place where we raise early lambs 
a “lambery ?” I am in favor of it. Well, we have com¬ 
menced operations in our lambery this year, not earlier 
than ever before, but on a more extensive scale for so early 
a date. On October 18 we had no young lambs, but when 
I was home the day before election—November 3—we had 
66, which made an average of a little over four a day. and 
they were then coming lively. This is a much better suc¬ 
cess than we have had ever before. 
Why this Success ? is the question all will like an¬ 
swered. As is well known, one early lamb is worth two 
late ones, and we have given days to the investigation of 
the best way to produce them, trying to discover some 
sure way of obtaining success every time. Sometimes we 
have thought we had solved the problem, and then, the 
very next year, have found we were as far off as ever. We 
used to think—and I have so written for The Rural New- 
Yorker —that it would not do to keep ewes for this pur¬ 
pose more than one year; that the forcing process was 
such a strain upon the system that they would “play out;” 
but we have changed our minds. A ewe that raises an 
early lamb this year is much more likely to have one next, 
and will do better by it than a fresh ewe, and so we have 
taken to sorting out all our best mother-ewes and keeping 
them over. The idea that ewes cannot stand the close 
housing aud high feeding necessary to produce the best re¬ 
sults more than a single year, is a humbug, and we now 
keep them three or even four years at the business. We 
look upon this as one cause for our great “luck” this 
year. 
The Best Breeds for Sires.— This is a matter of very 
great importance also. As I have before stated in The 
Rural, we have tested nearly all the breeds for this pur¬ 
pose and up to three years ago were fully convinced that 
the Hampshire was superior to all others, although we still 
tried each year in a small way the other black-faced 
breeds. Four years ago we imported a few Dorset Horned; 
but they arrived too late to be used that year. The next 
year we used one of the rams to a limited extent and were 
much pleased with the crosses produced. The lambs 
came strong, were robust, lively and grew very rapidly. 
The rams have so much prepotency that one can scarcely 
tell half bloods from a Dorset sire from full-bloods and, 
as a matter of course, the lambs all have large horns. When 
the first were sent to market our agent wrote : Those 
tremendous horns are a very great objection and you had 
better put the lambs into some other market;” but within 
an hour of the time when the letter was received a tele¬ 
gram came, saying: “The parties who had the horned 
lambs want more ; send them right along.” That was the 
last objection that was ever raised to them, and now the 
bigger the horns the better do the lambs sell. They are a 
sort of trade-mark. 
The next year—in 1889—we used several Dorsets. As an 
experiment, with one flock of a little over Iih) ewes we put 
one ram of each of the Shropshire, Hampshire and Dorset 
breeds. When the lambs came more than half were 
Dorset crosses, and there were twice as many Dorset twins 
as of both the others. The Dorset crosses grew more rap¬ 
idly than the others, and went to market when from a 
week to 10 days younger than either of the others and sold 
for better prices. More than this: all, or nearly all, the 
very earliest lambs were Dorset crosses. We then de¬ 
cided to use this year nearly all Dorset sires, and have done 
so, having only used Shropshlres and Hampshires in an 
experimental way. Although the rams of each of the three 
breeds were put with the ewes at the same date, of all 
the lambs dropped up to November 3, ouly three were of 
the black-faced parentage. While it is doubtful if the 
breed is the only factor in getting very early lambs, there 
is no doubt it has very much to do with the matter. This 
can be attributed largely to the fact that the Dorset is by 
far the most active, untiring worker ever seen in a flock of 
ewes. I do not wish to boom the Dorsets, and have not 
done so, as all must know, for although we have had them 
now for over four years, this is the first time I have ever 
written a word in their praise and almost the first time I 
have ever mentioned them, and all I have to say now is 
that, having tested them fully for four years for early 
lamb getting, I have not found them wanting. 
Niagara County, X. Y. 
Lgr* Every American Garden reader 
is presented with a copy of this issue ot 
The Rural New-Yorker. Please look 
it over carefully. If you get more than 
one copy, please to place it in good hands. 
