CROWDING THE SMALL FARM. 
Great Value of the Purebred. 
Part III. 
I said in my last communication that I would try 
to prove to the satisfaction of any reasonable person 
that dairy farmers cannot afford to keep scrub or 
grade cattle, and I will start with a few facts per¬ 
fectly well-known to everyone having any experience 
in dairy business. The cost of keeping a grade is 
just the same as the cost of keeping a purebred. The 
labor of milking, feeding and care is the same for 
each. 1 he purebred will give, on an average, from 
one-third to one-half more milk than the grade, un¬ 
der the same conditions. A young calf from a grade 
is worth in the market about $2. A young calf from 
a good purebred with good milk and butter records 
back of her is worth from $50 to $100, depending 
on whether the calf is a bull or heifer. The laws 
of nature will generally produce about an equal num¬ 
ber of each sex, so that the average price for calves 
should be about $75. A good grade cow will cost 
about $50. A good purebred will cost $200. For the 
purpose of argument, we will say that 
both the grade and the purebred are 
good cows, and each give 12,000 pounds 
of milk per year. This figures out about 
as follows: Charge purebred with in¬ 
terest on purchase price of $200, at six 
per cent, $12; feed for year, $50; labor 
and care per year, $50; total expense, 
$112. Credit purebred with 12,000 
pounds of milk at $1.50 per 100, $180; 
sale of calf, $75; total receipts, $255; 
total expenses, $112; total net profit per 
year, $ 143. Charge grade with interest 
on purchase price of $50 at six per cent, 
$5; feed per year, $50; labor and care 
per year, $50; total expense, $102. Credit 
grade cow with 12,000 pounds of milk 
at $1.50 per 100, $180; sale of calf, $2; 
total receipts, $182; net profit for grade, 
$79; net result in favor of purebred 
for year, $G4. On this basis the farmer 
who keeps 20 purebreds will receive 
during the year $1,280 more than the 
farmer who keeps 20 grades, assuming 
that each produces the same amount of 
milk; and a very few years of this ad¬ 
vantage will soon lift the mortgage from 
the farm. 
But, some one may say, “the first cost 
of 20 purebreds at $200 each is impossible for the 
average farmer.” Not a bit of it. If you own 20 
gi.ides, for instance, sell them all and purchase five 
good purebreds, and in three years you will have a 
barn full of good purebred stock, and the chances 
aie that during those first three years your five pure¬ 
breds will give about as much milk as your 20 grades 
formerly did. Fig. 186 shows one of my cows, and I 
have quite a number of the same style, breed and 
make-up. They cost me a little more than $150 each; 
•dl young, well-bred, large, milky-looking cows. I 
Five had them officially tested by officers in the employ 
of the State Experiment Station, and while I am 
st ‘" a l° n £ way from breaking any records, it 
shows what may be done with that class of good 
purebreds. I have recently made records as follows: 
I ivc tull-age cows, two two-year olds, and one, a year 
and 10 months, gave a yield of 3,220 pounds of milk, 
and 134.22 pounds of butter in one week; or a daily 
average of 57.5 pounds of milk and 2.4 pounds of 
mtter each day for each animal. Of course, some of 
the full-age cows went as high as 508 pounds of milk, 
and 22.5 pounds of butter in seven days, and some of 
t ie heifers failed to produce little more than half 
that amount; but the eight together produced 460 
pounds of milk each day, and some of them produced 
milk which tested 5.50 per cent of butter fat. Now, 
just look around a bit and see how many dairies of 
20 grade cows arc producing more milk and butter 
than the eight which I have described. I may say 
that I have several others which I think will do better 
than those already tested, but I prefer to confine 
myself to actual official figures. 
Now, what do all of these facts and figures prove 
to the dairy farmer? If anything can be proved, it 
it that you can't keep up with the procession if you 
continue to drive scrubs and grades; you have got to 
get into the purebred class if you expect to win 
even a place in the race from now on. A cow, in the 
abstract, is simply a machine capable of changing 
fodder into milk, and the greater her capacity to do 
her work, the more profitable and valuable she be¬ 
comes and, as a result of careful, intelligent breeding, 
for hundreds, and in some breeds for 2,000 years, 
the present wonderful purebred dairy cow has been 
produced. Still that is not all of it, even when you 
become the owner of the purebred; a neglected pure¬ 
bred is likely to be little better than a neglected grade, 
and a farmer who neglects his stock should keep 
neither. First of all, comfortable, sunny, well-venti¬ 
lated stables should be provided, not in the basement, 
but above ground, if possible. Good fresh water 
should always be within reach, plenty of bedding, clean 
stables and a daily grooming. Then if you have pro¬ 
vided the silage, roots and Alfalfa or clover described 
in my former article, and feed and milk cows regularly, 
treat them kindly and take some pride in your stock 
and stables, you will have no reason to complain of 
the result at the milk pail. One thing should be borne 
in mind always, and that is this: no matter how well 
a cow is bred, or how great her capacity, if you don’t 
feed her, she will not give the milk. Some of us, no 
doubt, can recall our younger days upon the farm, 
when to feed a cow during the Winter more than was 
actually necessary to prevent starvation was deemed 
wasteful, and often have I seen the farmer go down 
the line of a cold Winter morning and tail up his cows 
so that they could go out to the water hole to drink. 
Think of cows thus treated trying to bring forth good 
calves, and expect them to produce milk! The 
neglected cow is always an unprofitable animal. 
Just one word as to feeding. There are almost as 
many feed formulas as there are farmers, and the 
feed of any animal should be determined by the avail¬ 
ability of certain feeds in any given locality, having in 
view, of course, a reasonably nutritious and easily- 
digested ration. In my judgment it is not necessary 
to purchase large quantities of high-priced feeds, 
simply because some scientist has calculated that such 
and such combinations make a balanced ration. Old 
Dr. Grass” has the best-balanced ration that was 
ever made, and the nearer you can follow his formula 
the year round, the better the stock will thrive. That 
is why I provide lots of green soiling crops in Sum¬ 
mer and rich silage with Alfalfa or clover and lots 
of roots for Winter feeding, and practically no grain 
whatever. Some one may ask, how can you produce 
your rich milk and butter fat without feeding grain? 
My answer is that no man has ever found the secret 
of producing butter fat by feeding any kind of bal¬ 
anced ration. I he man who can solve that secret 
can become a millionaire in a month. Every breeder 
would want the secret and would pay the price. At 
present it is locked up in nature’s storehouse, and 
our friendly cow, while giving daily 
demonstrations of the phenomenon, 
gives no hint and no suggestion of the 
answer. 1 wo of my cows, standing side 
by side, eating exactly the same feed, 
drinking the same water, treated in all 
respects exactly alike, produced milk 
which tested in butter fat from one, 5.5 
per cent and from the other 3.2 per 
cent. 1 he only thing which we posi¬ 
tively know is that a fat cow produces 
richer milk than a thin one, and most 
of the very high records are made from 
cows carrying an excessive amount of 
fat before they freshen. In other words, 
it is easy to feed so as to increase the 
flow of milk, but the butter fat must 
come right off the ribs, if a record is 
to be made. It is also generally believed 
that the tendency to produce milk con¬ 
taining a high percentage of butter fat 
is transmitted as an hereditary quality 
from dam to daughter and from sire to 
son, but just how far breeding has de¬ 
termined this quality cannot be defin¬ 
itely stated. It seems to be very largely 
an individual quality, and influenced by 
natural variation. Many cows of the 
same family and breeding will be found 
to vary quite as much in this respect as cows from 
entirely different families. 
After all, a great cow is not produced alone by 
breeding, although good breeding is absolutely es¬ 
sential in the production of great cows. The process 
begins months before the animal is born. The sire 
should be healthy and vigorous; the dam must be in 
fine condition, kindly treated and a cow of large 
capacity, and from such parentage a strong, well- 
developed, vigorous calf will come. I allow the calf 
when born to remain with its dam for 24 hours, and 
no milk is drawn from her during that time, except 
what the calf secures in nature's way. After that the 
cow is put back in her place and the calf is fed twice 
a day from his mother’s milk, until he is 10 days old. 
At 10 days, place a little wheat bran and ground oats 
in a box fastened to the side of the stall where lie 
can reach it; give him a handful of fine Alfalfa or 
clover hay, and keep fresh water before him to drink, 
and without fail the youngster will be chewing his cud 
like old folks when he is 12 days old. Now, begin 
to dilute his milk with skim-milk until at the end of a 
week he is receiving three quarts of skim-milk, and 
all the ground oats and bran, and sweet Alfalfa he 
MARY PAULINE PAUL 43614; 472.7 POUNDS MILK—19.01 POUNDS 
BUTTER IN SEVEN DAYS. Fig. 186. 
