1905. 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
HOMELY FACTS ABOUT DAIRYING. 
Profit in butter making depends on two 
things, good care and growing our feed, 
for there is not a hundred pounds of but¬ 
ter in a ton of bran or cornmeal, as there 
must be at present prices to get back their 
cost. Therefore we must grow clover 
hay, oats, corn, rye or wheat; have them 
ground, sell the Hour and feed the bran; 
also grow carrots. Turn the corn crop 
into silage (sweet), except such as is 
needed for the additional grain feed, 
grind that in the car with oats, and that 
by a good farm mill, to save the miller's 
toll. 
Carrots have an assisting acid, besides 
adding flavor to the butter which adds 
to its market value, and they also give 
the butter a better color. As important 
as the above feeding is the cow's comfort. 
Nothing eats up butter faster than dis¬ 
comfort and fear, because they shrink 
the butter fat and so make their milk, 
which is steering the butter into the ma¬ 
nure pile instead of into the churn. 
Therefore have warm floors and warm 
stables; a cow cannot run a furnace and 
a churn with the one feed. My floors 
rest on packed earth, by which they never 
freeze, and the stable is lined and with 
the spaces filled with sawdust, by which 
the thermometer never gets below 40 de¬ 
grees. Another butter eater is the 
stanchion. Farmers are very careful to 
have for themselves warm floors and 
feather beds, but leave their dutiful cows 
hanging by the neck in the cruel stocks 
named stanchions, and to get what sleep 
they can on a frost-carpeted floor; both 
should be abolished by law as cruelty to 
animals. It is much more profitable to 
keep a less number of cows by dividing 
the stable into narrow box stalls, than 
the greater number in stanchions. 
W e can also class tile horns with butter 
eaters, and the boss cow cats more butter 
than the farmer’s family, for every time 
she spears the other cow. shrink goes the 
butter fat. Her ally is the dog. A milk¬ 
man out of Albany was known as “Old 
Bluemilk,” and he was the record breaker, 
lie fed as much as the other milkmen, 
and kept as good cows, but he also kept 
a shepherd dog. which he sent every day 
for the cows, and which the dog brought 
home on a full run. Another, and a dou¬ 
ble eater, is the noisy rough milker. 
Doubtless the discomfort family eats more 
butter than the human family, which 
means that butter costs double what it 
needs to to produce. The farmer should 
ponder, not how to get his cow to eat 
more feed, but how to help her appro¬ 
priate what she does eat for her udder 
instead of for the barnyard. Thc} r might 
experiment with the extract of repose. 
As to the growing of our feed crops, 
clover hay, with improved harvesting ma¬ 
chines, can be raised and put into the 
barn for less than $2 a ton, and in con¬ 
nection with silage a cow will eat less 
than a ton between October and pasture. 
Silage, with improved farm implements, 
can be n * into the silo for less than one 
dollar a ton, and a cow will do finely (a 
Jersey) on a ton a month. Carrots can 
be raised for less than 10 cents a bushel, 
and a cow will not require over a peck a 
day. The oat straw can be made to pay 
for the oats, and the cornstalks for the 
corn. Then add to the above feeding one 
pound of linseed meal and two pounds of 
cotton-seed meal, per cow per day, and 
we will have first-class butter at a profit. 
We might add to the butter account the 
value of the manure made and used be¬ 
yond that applied on the feeding crops, 
which would be considerable if all the 
manure is carefully saved; i. e., the liquid 
as well as the solid, as it contains over 
half of the plant food that an animal voids, 
so that a farmer who allows it to run to 
waste is as brilliant as the one who allows 
a neighbor to steal half of his manure. 
Beside saving there is a very great gain 
in spreading the manure on the sod in¬ 
tended for next year’s corn as soon as 
the hay is off, which saves the wash from 
rain while in the yard. Still another 
source of saving or gaining is in buying 
the cows instead of raising them. It takes 
two years to make a calf a producer; two 
years of feed and care, without pay, and 
she may die, or worse, she may turn out 
a four-pounder instead of a fourteen- 
pounder. as she ought to. During such 
time a good cow will produce three 
calves, a thousand pounds of butter and 
a iarge amount of skim-milk and butter¬ 
milk. 
When buying a cow demand a guar¬ 
antee that she will make eight pounds of 
butter on pasture; then raise her by good 
care and feeding towards the 14-pounder, 
and my way of getting such cows for 
nothing is to buy four or five others that 
promise a profit in selling, which profit 
pays for the cow I keep instead of my¬ 
self. so that when the dairv is coninlete 
there is as much money in the bank as 
when starting. It is merely a question of 
more capital and common sense with zeal. 
The farmer who would be successful 
should stop aH ask himself: “Is this the 
wisest thing for me to do? Is this the 
best way of doing it?” He should con¬ 
sult with his wife on farming business, 
and to that add a farm paper to consult 
with. 1 heard a farmer say that he had 
no money to fool on farm papers, and 
no time to fool reading them. At the 
same season he sold his apples at $1.50 
a barrel when if he had read the market 
reports in the paper he would have seen 
that they were selling at $2.50, by which 
he could have made enough to pay the 
subscription for a hundred years. 
_ J. V. H ENRY NOTT. 
HOW THEY FEED SILAGE. 
I must say we have been quite old- 
fashioned in our system of feeding silage; 
every silo with which I have had to do 
has been built near enough to the stable 
so we have either used a two-bushel bas¬ 
ket or a wheelbarrow. For all animals 
not more than 50 feet from the silo the 
basket is surely the quickest way. Be¬ 
yond that it will pay to carry it. If tlje 
silos are in a distant corner some of the 
carriers will do quick and satisfactory 
service. A man with a basket will walk 
up to a pile, fill it with his hands with 
two motions, pick it up with a third and 
away he goes to the cows. He will do 
the work mentioned in the time required 
for the other man to get his shovel into 
a carrier. Even with those that drop to 
the floor they are still two to three feet 
high, and the silage must all be raised 
that high. Now when he gets to the cow 
this must all be taken out. or if dumped 
then scattered, all of which takes time. 
I have been in several barns where they 
were feeding with baskets, and the carrier 
was idle. I might add the barrow was 
fitted with a box large enough to hold 
silage for three or four cows. 
it. E. cook! 
Our silo is erected at one end of the 
cow stables. Small openings are made 
by doors as silage is used, commencing 
at the top. This is dropped in a large 
box, large enough to hold a day's supply; 
HOME IS BEST. 
then is taken up in baskets, and delivered 
to each cow, about 30 pounds each per 
day. d. c. lewis. 
We have never made use of any spe¬ 
cial device other than a bushel basket. 
But 1 have seen a box on casters or 
wheels, holding about 12 bushels, which 
was used to good advantage. We use a 
fork for getting the silage out of the silo. 
Our silo is a round one, and is connected 
to the barn by a short passage, and this 
extends the whole height of the silo. We 
pitch the silage out into this, then shovel 
into basket. I think as far as I have seen 
the box arrangement is most commonly in 
use here, though most feeders use the 
bushel basket, either a wooden or steel 
one. JAS. B. HOXIE. 
The first important factor in devices for 
feeding silage is the convenient location of 
the silo, contiguous to the feeding alley. 
1 he foot of the chute should be as near 
the mangers as possible. A four or five- 
tined fork may be used to loosen and 
throw down the silage. After the silage 
is roughened up by the fork a hay rake 
answers very well to pull the top off level 
again. I have not found anything better 
than the alternate use of these two tools. 
1 he beginner needn’t fear much from 
spoiled silage in cold weather if the whole 
top is not sand-papered every day. In hot 
weather care is necessary. The bushel 
basket is commonly used to carry the sil¬ 
age from the pile to the manger, although 
it holds too much for one cow if heaped 
or pressed, and is not an accurate meas¬ 
ure for careless men. J. G. Schwink, sec¬ 
retary of the Connecticut Dairymen’s As¬ 
sociation. uses a half bushel basket. This 
pressed full makes a better measure of 
an average feed of silage. Another method 
that works very well where the silo could 
not be conveniently located is for two men 
to take as many bags into the silo as 
there are animals to feed, and put a ra¬ 
tion into each bag. This is a little more 
trouble at the beginning, but puts the fod¬ 
der into shape for expeditious feeding, 
and can be conveniently handled on "a 
truck or wagon. The feeder should be 
the same man every day, and he also 
should clean the mangers, so as to study 
the cows, if the feeding is to be a success. | 
E. C. BIRGE. 
Beware of “Cheap” 
CREAM SEPARATORS 
There was never so much talk of “cheap” separators. 
It may well be said that the 
DE LAVAL 
has its numerous imitators on the run, and that most 
of them are nearing the end of their race. All are 
offering cut after cut in prices, and making most des¬ 
perate efforts to unload machines at any cost. 
Of course you want a cheap separator. But be sure 
you know what cheapness means. It means more in 
a separator than in anything else because the use of 
a poor machine means WASTE every time milk is put 
through it. 
Don’t lose sight of the importance of CAPACITY, 
and remember always that in proportion to actual 
capacity the 
DE LAVAL 
is the cheapest separator made. In addition it 
SAVES its cost while others WASTE theirs, and 
it will last TEN TIMES as long. 
Remember too that you have got to have new wear¬ 
ing parts for a separator, frequently for a poor one, 
and that most so-called “cheap” machines now offered 
will be off the market in a year or two. Then your 
“cheap” machine must go straight to the “junk heap.” 
There was never a better time than now to buy a 
good separator, as with the season of high butter 
prices ahead it will half save its cost in otherwise 
wasted butter-fat before Spring. But don’t be tempted 
to buy one of the “paste diamond” class that will soon 
be worth no more than its weight in scrap-iron, and 
will have WASTED instead of SAVED its cost while 
you did use it. 
The best is more truly the cheapest in cream separ¬ 
ators than in anything else. Send today for catalogue 
and name of nearest local agent. 
The De Laval Separator Co. 
Randolph & CanalSts. 
CHICAGO 
1213 Filbert Street 
PHILADELPHIA 
9 and II Drumm St. 
SAN FRANCISCO 
General Offices: 
74 CORTLANDT ST., 
NEW YORK. 
121 Youville Square 
MONTREAL 
75 and 77 York Street 
TORONTO 
248 McDermot Avenue 
WINNIPEG 
