1909. 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
261 
FRENZIED COW TESTING. 
Several months ago, I sold a young 
Jersey heifer to an old farmer, who 
had never owned any purebred cattle. 
Here is an extract from a letter that 
I recently received from him: 
I like the cow very well. She Rives nice 
rich milk, and I believe she will make a 
very nice cow. I like her so much that I 
wish I had another. Please let me know 
how much you charge for a good butter 
cow with second calf that will make 25 
pounds of butter in a week? 
Great guns! Twenty-five pounds of 
butter in a week from a heifer with 
second calf! And the old fellow asks 
for her as though he expected that I 
had a barn full of such heifers. At 
first I was nearly paralyzed, but upon 
consideration it is not very surprising 
that the average farmer who has never 
had any experience in such matters 
should suppose that almost any good 
purebred cow should make 25 pounds 
of butter in a week. Since the inaug¬ 
uration of the Babcock test these great 
butter (?) records have become so 
common that it is no wonder that one 
man said: “Give some of those fel¬ 
lows a grease spot and a good long 
lead pencil, and they would figure out 
a majority for Bryan.” But I am not 
saying anything against the Babcock 
test. There is no doubt of its effi¬ 
ciency in determining the fat content 
of milk if properly used, and there is 
also no doubt that by its use a whole 
lot of humbug records have been made. 
But suppose it does show the fat con¬ 
tent of the milk perfectly accurately. 
It does not by any means follow that 
it shows just how much butter that 
milk will produce. For example, C. 
S. Moore, in his excellent article “The 
Holstcin-Friesian Story,” says: “The 
fat globules of Holstein milk are small, 
and consequently the milk does not 
cream readily;” and he might have ad¬ 
ded that the cream does not churn 
readily, and that many of the small 
globules never become butter. Yet these 
people will take a thimbleful of milk 
and whirl it in the tester, and figure 
out a butter record, and then confirm 
it by whirling another thimbleful of milk 
and figuring it out just like the other 
one. 
Now, if they want to confirm the 
record, why don’t they run the whole of 
the milk through a separator, and churn 
the cream into butter and weigh it? 
This would give a butter record and 
not be simply an indication that the 
cow was capable of making so much 
butter provided that the sample taken 
zvas a fair one, and that all of the fat 
in the milk could be caught and made 
into butter. 
Next let us see how much one of 
these great butter (?) records is 
worth in determining the true value of 
the cow. The usual way in which these 
records are made is like this: The cow 
is not bred in a long time after calv¬ 
ing. She is milked a reasonable time, 
and dried off. Then she goes dry sev¬ 
eral months, and in some cases nearly 
a year. I believe that the present 
world’s record cow had not dropped 
a calf in three years until the one she 
had just before her test began. As 
the time draws near for her to calve, 
she is watched with the utmost care, 
and given feed and medicine to bring 
her through in her abnormally fat state 
witnout misfortune. Then as soon as 
it can be safely done she is plied with 
an enormous quantity of grain and 
milked four times a day. If she lives 
so long, she makes a great seven days’ 
record, and in case she continues to 
live she finds her way to the sausage 
machine in a year or two. 
There are hundreds of good cows 
ruined in just this way. It is not im¬ 
proving the race of milk cows. It is 
rank folly to claim that the dairy breed 
is improved when a cow is spoiled 
that might have continued to do good 
rational work and drop a strong, 
healthy calf for several years in suc¬ 
cession if kept and fed in a rational 
manner. The public tests of dairy cat¬ 
tle are bad enough, but we never find 
anything like the enormous yields re¬ 
ported in private tests. I have before 
me the record of the 12 Holstein-Fries- 
ians at the Pan-American Exposition. 
The best one of the lot tested 15.019 
pounds of fat in a week, estimated at 
17.65 pounds of butter. The whole 12 
averaged 14^2 pounds of butter each, 
and the milk of the whole 12 takqi to¬ 
gether tested 2.98 per cent of fat, or 
just a little below the legal standard 
in New York State. 
Now we will come down a few years, 
and see what the Jerseys did at St, 
Louis. I will tell you about the St. Louis 
Jerseys, because I know what has be¬ 
come to some of them. The champion 
cow in the demonstration, “Loretta D.,” 
tested 330 pounds of butter in 120 days, 
and 20.85 pounds of butter the best 
seven 'consecutive days of the test. 
Only 20.85! Over four pounds less 
than my farmer friend would like his 
heifer to make! Yet what has become 
of Loretta D. ? F. E. McEldowney, 
Superintendent of Hazel Fern Herd, 
where she is owned, says: “Loretta D. 
141708, first in classes A and B, has not 
bred for us since the St. Louis’ Fair. 
We have done everything in an effort 
to accomplish same, but she seems a 
failure in that line.” 
“Diploma’s Brown Lassie 166688, sec¬ 
ond in classes A and B, has not done 
well since the St. Louis test. She be¬ 
came crippled in her legs and, feet and 
was also troubled with her hips. Al¬ 
though she bred and milked fairly well 
for a time after she came back, she 
gradually got worse, until we were 
compelled to put her away. There is 
no doubt that she was injured by high 
feeding at St. Louis. Her general ap¬ 
pearance showed every indication of 
this.” 
“Eurybia 143822, third in classes A 
and B (19.92 pounds butter in seven 
days), has been a steady worker and 
regular breeder, and shows no ill effects 
of her work while at St. Louis. She 
is a great cow.” 
The fourth and fifth cows were in¬ 
jured; one dying before she reached 
home and the other had to be killed. 
As a Jersey breeder who makes his 
living from Jersey cows, I suppose that 
a great many people will say that I 
am crazy to publish these facts, and 
they will ask each other why a pure¬ 
bred, registered cow is better than any 
other, if what I have written is true. 
In reply to these people I will say that 
the cow (no matter what her breed) 
that will make 14 pounds of good mar¬ 
ketable butter in a week is far—very 
far—above the average. The one that 
will make 20 pounds is a phenomenally 
good one, and the 30 pound cow is a 
freak, if she really ever lived. A great 
many will say that their old “Brin” or 
“Spot” has made 14 pounds or better 
in a week. Well, how many of old 
“Brin’s” or “Spot’s” daughters have 
been as good as she was? You see, 
“Brin” or “Spot” was a freak among 
scrubs, just as the 30 pound cow is 
a freak among purebreds. 
The advantage of the purebred dairy 
cow is that she has been bred for 
generation after generation for perhaps 
a hundred years or more, as a pro¬ 
ducer ef dairy products. Some of these 
cows have been bred with more intel¬ 
ligence than others, and are better dairy 
cows. The improvement is gradual. It 
must be gradual to be lasting. The de¬ 
velopment of one function is at the 
expense of another. Therefore, the 
over-development of the milk-producing 
function is at the expense of the sexual 
parts, and we all know that a dairy 
cow that loses her reproducing facul¬ 
ties is a failure. There can be no real 
improvement in dairy cattle by making 
sensational tests any more than there 
can be an improvement in the commer¬ 
cial world by speculation in stocks. 
Therefore I headed this article “Fren¬ 
zied Cow Testing.” j. grant morse. 
Buckwheat for Milch Cows. 
What about the use of buckwbeat : mid¬ 
dlings for cows in milk? Is there any dan¬ 
ger in its use and what proportions should 
be mixed with corn and cob meal to give 
best results? Using buckwheat, what com¬ 
binations should produce greatest flow of 
milk? w. v. r. 
New York. 
Buckwheat middlings can be profitably 
used with corn and cob meal in a ration 
for milch cows, but the proportions de¬ 
pend largely upon the feeds used to 
complete the ration. As a rule, how¬ 
ever, it would be safe to feed about 
three pounds of each, and if mixed hay 
and Timothy is used for roughage you 
could add one pound of cotton-seed 
meal. If you feed clover hay or Al¬ 
falfa this would not be necessary. One 
serious objection to. buckwheat mid¬ 
dlings is its unpalatability, but this can 
be overcome by feeding from a pound 
to a pound and a half of molasses 
mixed with the grain for each cow. 
Cows will eat this feed mixed with 
molasses when they would reject it 
without the molasses. I have never seen 
any bad effects from feeding buckwheat 
in moderate amounts. c. s. greene. 
“I was only acting the part of peace¬ 
maker,” explained the prisoner. “But 
you knocked the man senseless with a 
stick,” the magistrate pointed out. 
“Sure I did,” was the answer. “There 
was no other way to ’ave peace with 
him around.”—Philadelphia Inquirer. 
^rs 
Here I Am 
1909 Tabular “A” 
Common “disc” or “bucket 
bowl” separators require more 
careful leveling than Tubulars. 
Yet, to level these common sep¬ 
arators, you must place a spirit 
level on their frames. If their 
frames are a little out of true, 
as they usually are, the leveling 
of the common “disc” or “bucket 
bowl” separator is largely 
guesswork. 
The plumb bob is one of the handy improvements on the 1909 
Sharpies Tubular “A” cream separator. It adds miles to the great 
lead Tubulars have always had over all other separators. 
This “plumb bob” enables you to set the 1909 Tubular “A” 
perfectly level in a minute—quicker than you could find the spirit 
level needed to set any other separator. You can always tell, by a 
glance at the plumb bob, whether Tubular “A” separators are level, 
thus always keeping the Tubular up to its very best work. Just 
another example of the “up to the minute” and “away ahead of the 
rest” character of Tubulars. 
Tubulars Are Different From AH Other Separators 
Tubulars are built on absolutely correct principles—that is, Tubulars have a bottom fed bowl 
hanging below a simple, frictionless ball bearing. The one piece frame and the permanent, compact, 
strong construction of Tubulars enables us to add to Tubulars some very handy devices which it is im¬ 
possible for other manufacturers to use on their constantly changing common “bucket bowl” machines. 
The incorrect principles of common “bucket bowl” machines—that is, a top fed bowl set up on 
top of a spindle—make all such machines unsatisfactory and necessitate constant changes that are 
merely makeshifts and not improvements. 
Tubulars are built in the world’s greatest, best equipped cream separator works. We have 
additional Tubular factories in Canada and Germany. Tubular sales 
for 1908 were way ahead of 1907—way out of sight of any competitor, 
if not all competitors combined. 
Our 1909 Tubular “A” is better than any previous Tubu¬ 
lar and is guaranteed forever in every part. 
Write for Catalog No. 153. 
The Sharpies Separator Go. 
It is the easiest thing in the world 
to level the Tubular “A” cream separator 
shown here. Simply wedge up under the 
corners of the machine until the point of the 
plumb bob hangs directly over the point 
of the plumb bob center, or plug, set into 
the base of the frame. Done in a minute 
and always right. Observe the low sup¬ 
ply can on the Tubular—you need not 
move it to take out the bowl. 
Toronto. Can. 
Winnipeg. Can. 
WESTCHESTER, PA. 
Chicago, Ill. 
Portland. Ore. 
6an Francisco. Cal. 
