1906. 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
Hi 
SHALL WE RAISE OUR OWN COWS? 
Most of tlie dairy cows in this section 
are raised by the dairymen themselves, 
and the rest are bought from the farmers 
living more remote from the shipping sta¬ 
tions. Until recently many cows were 
shipped from this section to places near 
Xew York and other large cities. You 
say that you think it would pay better 
to raise the cows, but there arc so many 
different conditions to meet that no rule 
can safely be laid down. Each man must 
judge for himself as to whether he can 
go into a hill farmer’s dairy and choose 
better cows than lie can raise at home at 
a given price. As for myself, I concluded 
years ago that I could buy a cow of ordi¬ 
nary breeding cheaper than I could raise 
her. But I did not stop raising cows. I 
just began raising those that would be 
worth more than it cost to raise them. At 
present calves of ordinary breeding, usual¬ 
ly from a high-grade or purebred sire 
(mostly black and white) can be bought 
at from $8 to $10 at six to eight months 
old. Next Spring these same calves can 
be bought at from $12 to $15, next Fall 
at from $15 to $20, and at two years old, 
if they drop calves, at about $:;0. Now, if 
one is situated so that he can produce 
milk for a shipping station, it docs not 
pay to raise heifers at $150 each, unless he 
is unable to get milkers for all the cows 
he may be able to keep, when it is very 
handy to splice out with young cattle. 
You may say that you would rather take 
your chances with your own heifers than 
to trust to buying. But I have found that 
a large percentage of the heifers raised 
from ordinarily bred dairy cows will prove 
to be but indifferent milkers, and 1 would 
rather buy them. I think that a man 
ought to be able to pick out good cows if 
he has spent several years in handling 
them, and has used his reasoning faculties 
while doing so. 
I here is no more fascinating occupation 
on the farm than breeding improved ani¬ 
mals, and it is one that has not been de¬ 
veloped to anywhere near its limit. At 
present there is n > excuse for uny farmer 
to use a scrub ball, and most farmers can 
afford to buy at least one purebred heifer. 
W ith even such a start one will soon have 
quite a herd of purebred animals, and the 
value of these animals will depend on how 
much their owner knows about mating 
and rearing them. My experience has 
been almost wholly in breeding Jerseys. 
These cattle are probably the oldest of the 
dairy breeds, and they arc so numerous 
and have been bred along certain lines to 
meet the ideas of so many different breed¬ 
ers that at present different strains or 
families represent widely different types. 
Now these different types prove to be the 
downfall of many new beginners. The 
great bugbear of many dairymen is a fear 
of in-breeding. So they, in changing 
bulls, get one of an altogether different 
strain from the cattle they already have, 
and in using him undo all they have al¬ 
ready done in improving their cattle. At 
present I don t believe that it makes any 
difference whether a Jersey is of Island or 
American breeding, provided the general 
type is the same. I lie trouble is in mat¬ 
ing animals of a widely different confor¬ 
mation. j. GRANT MORSE. 
THE SMALLEST SILO. 
How small a silo is practical is a ques¬ 
tion I sec discussed in recent numbers of 
I he R. N.-Y. My nearest neighbor, 
who keeps two cows, built one against the 
southeast end of his barn outside, which 
was six feet in diameter and 30 feet deep. 
He filled it with corn which was well ma¬ 
tured, having large nice ears, past the 
boiling stage, and it fed those two cows 
■dl W inter, with a nice quantity left for 
’be Summer’s use. lie found that his 
dlagc froze the worst on the side next 
’be barn, and that none of his silage froze 
so badly as in his brother’s, 12 feet in 
diameter, built inside his barn. 11 is the- 
n is that a silo inside the barn when it 
giit> to freeze, will keep on freezing be¬ 
cause the sunshine or warm winds cannot 
strikp it as they will a silo built outside. 
A cold snap, then the sun shines or warm 
winds hit the outside of the silo, and any 
silage that may have frozen against the 
side of the silo will drop down and thaw 
out, provided the silage is of good qual¬ 
ity. Too many get over-anxious for a big 
crop, put in too much seed corn and have 
a lot of immature stuff which they put in 
the silo and call it silage. I should say 
gauge the diameter of your silo by the 
size of your dairy, and that greater height 
is very desirable, as the silage will have 
more pressure and be less liable to spoil. 
Then with well-matured corn, and a 
proper grain ration, the cow will not only 
smile at you, but put some good milk in 
your pail, and look “slick” beside. 
New York. j. d. seeley. 
CURING PEAVINE HAY. 
My experience is limited to only two 
or three crops.of Soy bean hay. If your 
wet season has been as long continued as 
ours, one would think that there may be a 
cessation of rain by the time your peas are 
ready to cut. I have cut my beans in Sep¬ 
tember, and my first crop had a heavy 
rain on them in the swath, and before they 
could be taken up they got quite dark, so 
that they were very unattractive looking, 
but it was remarkable how the sheep 
cleaned them up except the coarsest stalks. 
I try to get them in cock before the leaves 
get dry enough to crumble, and leave them 
to cure out well, which takes some time, 
but they will stand considerable rain. Last 
year I had Soy beans four feet high, and 
so dense I could hardly drive the mower 
horses through them. It takes several 
days to get such a growth fit to go in the 
cock even with turning over once or twice. 
Albin, Va. _ A. s. w. 
VERMONT MORGAN HORSE. 
Quite a good many Morgan-bred mares can 
lie picked up in Vermont. Nearly all of 
them are of fair merit and some of them 
exceedingly good. Prices always depend 
largely upon the persons who own them, 
flood Morgan mares can be bought all the 
way from $200 to $1,000. j. b. 
Bread Loaf, Vt. 
They are still breeding Morgan horses, 
but since the Introduction of bicycles and 
electric cars and automobiles there has been 
a lull in the breeding of all horses. There 
are some still all over Vermont, and I think 
there are enough good Morgan stock that 
will be bred to keep the Morgan stock in 
good slmi>e for perhaps the next generation. 
Brandon, Vt. s. G. F. 
Very few farmers' here are raising the 
Morgan or any other breed. In fact, I have 
seen only one little colt this season. For 
heavy work like hauling granite or lumber 
the western horses are used quite a good 
deal. On the farms there are many horses 
with more or less Morgan blood. These 
horses' will probably weigh about 900 pounds, 
but they are not for sate, but a sound young 
horse is considered easily worth $200. in 
an adjoining town there is a young Morgan | 
stallion for which the owner has refused an 
offer of $t,000. A few years ago many farm¬ 
ers raised colts, but the low prices' dis¬ 
couraged them, and now prices are so high 
that they keep only what horses are needed 
to do the farm work. s. s. c. 
Hardwick, Vt. 
The Bacon Hog.—I n a circular written 
by J. .T. Ferguson we are told that a hog 
of a certain shape and type is' best for mak¬ 
ing bacon. In Canada and some parts of mis 
country this “bacon type” of pig brings a 
superior price: “The most desirable cross, 
if a cross be desired, is with a Yorkshire 
boai* and a Berkshire sow. -flic large Im¬ 
proved Yorkshire has many qualities to rec¬ 
ommend him as the ideal bacon type hog—• 
first his color is the best: white hogs dress 
out cleaner and yield more attractive car¬ 
cases than hogs of other breeds. They are 
lemarkably prolific, the writer having seen 
in iiis own experience numerous Utters of If! 
to 18 pigs, with an average covering 10 years 
of more than 10 reared. Yorkshire dams 
are remarkably good mothers; hence we find 
the young pigs are started so well in life that 
at eight weeks old they should he. heavier 
(ban pigs of other breeds. Some charge the 
Y orkshiro breed with being slow in matur¬ 
ing. in view of the fact that a thrifty York¬ 
shire will take ou weight until the age of 
four or five years, but compared with other 
ine .Is at the age of eight to ten months, 
which is tlio most desirable age to fuliiil tim 
packers' demand for lmcon products, l am 
satisfied thjit they cannot ho surpassed for 
rapidity of growth and development.” 1 
Timely Warning Against 
“MAIL ORDER” 
CREAM SEPARATORS 
The “Farm Implement News” of Chicago quotes the follow¬ 
ing- good advice to dairy farmers from a lecture by Prof. C. E. 
Lee of the University of Illinois State Experiment Station. 
After dwelling- at length upon the advisability of farmers 
buying cream separators, as they secure at least a third more 
butter fat from the milk than the old-fashioned setting processes 
of “ raising ” cream, and stating that Iowa has 50,000 hand sepa¬ 
rators in use and Illinois was fast following this pace and would 
increase the annual value of the milk now produced by nearly a 
million dollars if every butter maker in the state had a separator, 
Mr. Lee was asked the name of the separator he would advise the 
farmer to buy, and replied: 
“ I am not at liberty to give my preference, for I am not 
selling separators—if I were to name a separator manu¬ 
facturer, either to you here in public or in private, I would 
lose my position—hut there is one thing I desire to warn 
you farmers against, and that is buying hand separators 
from the ‘mail order’ houses, Don’t do it—you will regret 
it. The machines do not give results and they do not laSU 
Our department receives hundreds of inquiries as to ‘ What’s 
the matter with my separator? It doesn’t do this or it 
doesn’t do that,’ and I tell you, gentlemen, that in every 
instance when we ask them to name their separator it is 
a ‘ mail order ’ house machine and almosft worthless when 
it was new.” 
Don’t waste your money in a trashy separator, made “ cheap ” 
to sell “cheap”, that is going to WASTE instead of SAVE for 
you EVERY TIME you put milk through it, and which would 
be very dear even as a gift. 
DE LAVAL Cream Separators are NOT that kind. They are 
actually CHEAPEST because they are BEST and last much 
LONGER than other machines. A DE LAVAL catalogue is to 
be had for the asking. 
The De Laval Separator Co. 
Randolph & Canal Sts. 
CHICAGO 
1213 Filbert Street 
PHILADELPHIA 
S & I I Drumm St. 
SAN FRANCISCO 
General Offices: 
74 CORTLANDT STREET, 
NEW YORK. 
109-1 13 Youville Square 
MONTREAL 
75 & 77 York Street 
TORONTO 
14 & 10 princess Street 
WINNIPEG 
CHAIN-HANGING 
CATTLE STANCBIOS 
The Most Practical 
CATTLE FASTENEB 
ever invented. 
Manufactured and for 
sale by 
O. H. ROBERTSON, 
Forestville. Conn. 
I ITPII ITTC THK POWER NOW BEING 
U l 1JU |£.y \ WASTED in that stream on 
your farm. Estimates furnished 
anil plants installed for electric light and power. 
CONNELL & CO., 50 Pine Street, New York, 
Lost Strayed or 
Stolen—One Cow 
That ia about what happens each year 
for the man who owns live cows and 
does not use a Tubular cream sepa¬ 
rator. He loses in cream more than 
the price of a good cow.The more cows 
he owns the greater the loss. This is a 
fact on which Agricultural Colleges, 
Dairy Experts and the best Dairymen 
all agree, and so do you if you use a 
Tubular. If nut, IPs high time you 
did. You can’t afford to lose the price 
Of one or more cows each vear—there’s 
no reason why you should. Get a Tu¬ 
bular and get more and better cream 
put of the milk ;save time and labor ami 
have warm sweet skim mod milk for the 
calves. Don’t buy some cheap rattle¬ 
trap thing called a separator; that 
won’t do any good. You need a real 
skimmer that does perfect work,skims 
clean, thick or thin, hot or cold; runs 
easy; simple in construction: easily 
understood. That’s the Tubular and 
there is but one Tubular, the Sbar- 
f »les Tubular. Don’t you want our 
ittle bunk “Business Dairymen,” and 
our Catalog A. l53both free? A postal 
will bring them. 
The Sharpies Separator Co. 
West Chester, Pa. 
Toronto, Can. Chiccso, III. 
Tonic 
Question 
is how to make the steers and, 
hogs fat quickest and cheap¬ 
est—the cows give most i 
milk for food eaten—the 
teams and driving 
horses show best con-,, 
dition and fitness. 
D5 HESS 
STOCK FOOD 
the prescription of Dr. Hess 
(M.D., D. V. S.) contains the bit¬ 
ter touics for the digestion, iron 
for the blood, nitrates to expel 
poisonous material from thesy9tem 
and laxatives to regulate the bowels. 
These ingredients are recommended 
by Professors Winslow, Quitman, 
Finlay Dun, and all the noted medi¬ 
cal writers. Besidesincreasinggrowth 
and milk production, Dr. Hess Stock 
Food cures and prevents stock disease. 
Bold on a written Guarantee. 
100 lbs. $5.00 ) Except in Canada 
25 lb. pall, $1.60 ( , v an '' 
Smaller quantities at a slight^ " e ’ lt ani * South, 
advance. 
Where Dr. Hess Stock Food differs in par¬ 
ticular is in the dose—it’s small and fed but 
twice a day, which proves it lias the most diges¬ 
tive strength to the pound. Our Government 
reoogniies Dr. Hess StockFoodnsamedicinat 
tonic, and this paper is back of the guarantee. 
If your dealer cannot supply you, we will. 
DR. HESS & CLARK, Ashland. Ohio. 
Also manufacturers of Dr. Hess Poultry 
Fan-a-ve-a ami Instant Louse Killer, 
