1872 .] 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
371 
Ogden Farm Papers.—No. 33. 
I have several times resolved to let the deep- 
can question rest on its own merits, and to take 
no part in the discussion concerning it which is 
wending its feeble and uncertain way through 
the columns of the agricultural papers; but I 
am called on every now and then to “ state but 
the facts ” in defense of my “ pet theory ”—to 
make a comparative trial of the two systems 
and to publish the result. This I would gladly 
do if I could afford it, but I can not. Butter¬ 
making is a business with us, and we have, hap¬ 
pily, got through with our experimenting. At 
the same lime, we have reached our present 
point by a very experimental way, and have lost 
many a large churning in attempting to find 
some means of making uniformly good butter 
by the old methods of creaming the milk. I 
iiave no favorite idea to advocate on this or any 
other subject, and I am entirely willing that 
every other dairyman in this free country should 
manage his work exactly as he likes. I merely 
say that I am entirely satisfied that I have hit 
on a plan that is more advantageous to me than 
any other I have been able to try, and when my 
advice is asked, I do not hesitate to recommend 
the deep-can system as sure to give good and 
uniform results. If the advice is not taken I am 
not at all offended, and if I am asked to prove 
the accuracy of my opinion I trust that my state¬ 
ment that I have no definite proof to offer will 
only induce those who doubt to experiment for 
themselves, and to leave me my own opinion. 
But, while I have no definite proofs, I have 
general ones which may be worth considering. 
This has been the very worst summer for butter 
that I have ever known—at least so far as the 
climate is concerned. Intense heat, dense and 
long-continued fogs, and frequent thunder¬ 
storms have conspired to make it often impos¬ 
sible to make good butter from milk that has 
been subjected to atmospheric influences. Far¬ 
mers generally have complained of the difficulty 
of making butter of satisfactory hardness, and 
customers have complained, still more, of the 
wretched quality of much of what they have 
received. “First-quality” fresh butter has 
ranged at about 30c. per pound, and much of it 
has been poor enough. Among those whom I 
know there has been great complaint of the 
quality of that which was bought for the best, 
and it has often been necessary to reduce the 
price to even 20c. to find a market. During all 
this time, the Ogden Farm butter has always 
been of the same excellent quality, and I have 
raised the price from 75c. to 90c. without eliciting 
a murmur. Of course, the fact that I have only 
Jersey cows has much to do with it, but with 
the same animals I was never able to prevent fre¬ 
quent changes in the quality until 1 withdrew 
the milk from the changing influence of the atmos¬ 
phere, and subjected it to the uniform temperature 
of spring-xoater —avoiding the access of atmos¬ 
pheric influences almost entirely. I believe that 
I got more butter than I should get if I used 
shallow pans, and I have very good reasous for 
the belief. I am sure that I get more money 
from my dairy, and that is the sole object for 
which it is carried on. 
I have several times been asked to give a de¬ 
tailed account of my herd and its product. I 
will premise by saying that it is essentially a 
breeding herd, and that butter, though an im¬ 
portant, is a secondary object. We keep a good 
cow as long as she will produce fine calves, 
even though she may have ceased to be a good 
milker. Also, we turn the bull with the heifers 
when they are from ten months to fifteen months 
old, that they may be made useful as breeders 
at the earliest possible moment, and that they 
may develop the milking tendency before they 
have time to form the other habit (most, injurious 
to a butter cow) of taking on fat. The conse¬ 
quence is that we have always a good proportion 
of animals on the milking list which are of little 
account as compared with cows in their prime. 
During the week ending August 10th we were 
milking 30 animals. Of these six had aborted 
at from four to seven months, and were giving 
very little milk. (Three of these had previously 
been the very best milkers in the herd, and had 
now become almost the worst.) Eleven were 
two-year-old heifers with their first calves, six 
were three year-olds with their second calves, 
and one was very nearly dry. They are there¬ 
fore far from being an “abled-bodied” herd, nor 
are they heavy feeders. Yet they made, during 
this week, 153 lbs. of butter, worth, at 90c. per 
pound, $137.70. It was about the hottest and 
most unfavorable week I ever knew. 
One fact developed by the record of this week 
may surprise those who are not familiar with 
the Jersey breed. The average weekly yield of 
butter was (per cow) 5 I0 /i 00 lbs. The average daily 
yield of milk was 13 2I /i 0 o lbs. The largest daily 
yield from a single cow was 23 ,B /i 0 o lbs. The 
total yield for the week was 2,774 lbs., and the 
weight of milk required to make a pound of 
butter (averaging the whole herd) was 18 13 /ioo 
lbs., or 8 43 /ioo quarts. This is not by guess, nor 
by “rule of thumb,” but by actual weight taken 
at each milking, the cows being on green sum¬ 
mer feed. The product has since fallen off 
somewhat, as an effect of the hot, close August 
weather, but the reduction has been more in 
the amount of milk than in the yield of butter. 
The record would not be complete without 
an account of our manner of feeding, etc. The 
cows pass the night in the barn-yard. In the 
morning they receive an average of three quarts 
of wlieat-bran and a good feed of corn-fodder. 
They then goto pasture,where they remain, on 
good feed, until 4 p.m. Then they are brought 
in, and have all they can eat of corn-fodder. 
I think they would do better if “soiled” en¬ 
tirely with suitable fodder, but I have pasture 
land which must be used in this way, if at all, 
and the high price of winter forage tempts me 
to cure all I can of the soiling crops. 
While on the subject of statistics, it may be 
of interest to say that I have sold since January 
1st, 1872, fifteen bulls and bull calves, as follows: 
One two-year-old for $200; seven yearlings for 
$695; seven calves for $350; in all fifteen head, 
at an average of $83. 
Formerly, my sales were almost entirely to 
breeders of thorough-breds, but a very large 
proportion of this year’s sales have been to 
dairy farmers who are desirous of improving 
the butter-making quality of their herds by an 
infusion of Jersey blood—indicating a growing 
appreciation of the value of this breed. 
We made a mistake iu our calculation about 
soiling this year, and it is very fortunate that 
the later growth of grass has been very good, 
and that we have beeu able to secure a good 
range. Last summer we planted fodder-corn 
until about August 10th, and the cold and drouth 
checked the growth of the later plantings, so 
that the crop was a failure, and our labor was 
lost. To be on the safe side, we this year 
planted all before July 20th—mostly before July 
10th. The result is that all we now have left is 
too far advanced to be readily eaten, and an ex¬ 
periment in feeding only this cut down the yield 
very materially, so that we have found the grass 
an indispensable resource. Of course, the corn 
now standing (about six acres) is very valuable 
for curing, so that there is no loss here; but it 
is clear that if we were to depend on this crop 
for the entire food of the cows we must run the 
risk of making one or two late plantings which 
might be of no use. This is a drawback to the 
system, but in spite of it I consider it a good 
system, and would on no account abandon it. 
Last year, in a severe drouth which cut the grass 
entirely short, we were making a fair amount of 
butter after our neighbors were very short in¬ 
deed—simply because we had a good supply 
of corn-fodder. Whether soiling is adopted as 
the only reliance or not, it will pay every farmer 
who keeps cows (or swine) to secure himself 
against a grass famine by having a good field of 
corn-fodder. If it is not needed in this way, it 
will be worth many times its cost as winter forage. 
When we commenced our operations we laid 
out a system of rotation of crops which was to 
keep most of the land always under the plow. 
The experience of the past two years has de¬ 
monstrated the fact that Ogden Farm is “ natu¬ 
ral grass-land,” and that for all other crops ex¬ 
cept corn-fodder and roots it is more or less un¬ 
reliable. Such portions as have been put into 
good condition produce really remarkable crops 
of hay, and a simple top-dressing suffices to 
maintain the yield, while the soil is so heavy 
that for the successful growth of hoed crops it 
requires a large amount of manure to make it 
light and open enough. In time, when it is 
better stocked with the roots of grass (especially 
of clover) it will be improved in this respect, 
but now it is evident that grass pays much better 
than anything else. We tire, therefore, seeding 
down all but about one fourth of the whole 
farm, hoping to raise on this fourth all the corn- 
fodder and roots that we shall need. An inci¬ 
dental advantage of this will be a decided reduc¬ 
tion of the demand for labor in the field, and 
with a large herd of thorough-bred animals to 
clean and care for, the saving in this respect is 
very important. It, is not pleasant to have to 
change plans which have been deliberately 
formed, but I confess that the labor question 
has conquered me, as it is pretty sure to do any 
farmer iu this costly countiy, and I surrender 
at discretion. With as good faciliiies for getting 
labor as any one could wish, I find it the wisest 
plan to employ as little as possible, and to raise 
nothing that I can buy for less than the cost of 
raising it—as I nearly always can all kinds of 
grain. I can now safely calculate on a product 
of 100 tons of hay or its equivalent, 1,500 to 
2,000 bushels of roots, and corn-fodder enough 
to furnish one half the summer feed for 40 head 
of cows and working animals. This is not a 
bad return from a 60-acre farm which five years 
ago would not produce the equivalent of 25 tons 
of hay, and was yearly growing poorer. It 1ms 
beeu “a hard row to hoe,” but it seems clear 
for the future, and under our system of cultiva¬ 
tion the improvement can not fail to continue. 
- 
I am sometimes asked whether, if I were about 
to commence again, I would take such a worn- 
out and run-down farm. It would of course 
depend on circumstances. I would not do so 
unless (as in the present instance) the price of 
the land was very low, for it is far more costly 
to restore fertility than to preserve it. Other 
things being equal, I would rather pay $200 per 
acre for land that can be depended on for two 
