254 
THE CULTIVATOR. 
Aug. 
Management of a Dairy Farm. 
Mr. Chauncey Beckwith, of Columbia, Herkimer 
county, presented to the Agricultural Society of that 
county, in 1847, the following statement of the pro¬ 
ducts and expenses of his farm for that year. It af¬ 
fords an excellent example of the advantage of system 
and economy, and shows what even a “ slender man, 
not able to do heavy work,” may accomplish, provided 
he has the mind for it. We copy from the Transac¬ 
tions of the N. Y. State Ag. Society. 
My farm consists of 100 acres, situated seven miles 
south of the Erie canal, and is about 900 feet above its 
level. I have 85 acres under improvement, on which I 
have kept 2 horses and 21 cows; 37 acres to pasture, 
35 to meadow, 8 to Oats, 2 to corn, 1 to wheat, lg to 
sowed corn, 8| to potatoes. 
Account Current. 
Made 12,000 lbs. cheese, sold at 7 cts.,.... $840 00 
weighed in the fall and well cured. 
Sold apples,. 40 00 
do butter,. 20 00 
Calves’ skins,. 10 00 
$910 00 
Interest on 4,000 pd. for farm,. $280 00 
do 
400 
do 
cows, .... 
28 
00 
do 
150 
do 
horses,... 
10 
50 
do 
150 
do 
utensils,.. 
10 
50 
$329 00 
One hand lh months, $12,. 90 00 
Paid for days’ works,_ ......... 40 00 
do hired girl. 35 weeks, $1.12^ 39 38 
do mechanics’ bills,.. 20 00 
do shorts for cows,.... 20 00 
do plaster, ... 12 00 
do cheese boxes and bandage, 35 00 
--— $585 38 
324 62 
Permanent improvements, stone wall, &c.,.. 50 00 
$374 62 
Seed grain not taken into account, as it is the 
product of the farm from year to year. 
Family expenses, besides appropriating a por¬ 
tion of the products of the farm for such 
purposes, .. 120 00 
Net profit,..$254 62 
I make this statement not for the purpose of boast¬ 
ing, but with a hope that other common farmers will be 
induced to make similar statements. It is believed that 
the statements usually made and published, are of 
farms in a very high state of cultivation, and if not ex¬ 
travagantly made, show a large yield and large profit, 
better calculated to discourage than to encourage far¬ 
mers in moderate circumstances. The soil of my farm 
is gravelly loam, the timber mainly beech and maple, 
with elm and basswood, eighty acres under improve¬ 
ment ; have kept cows two seasons: when I commenced, 
the farm had been for several years fed close by sheep, 
and was not in a good situation for keeping cows. My 
family consists of myself, wife, and four small children. 
I am a slender man, not able to do heavy work; have 
made the cheese and done some chores. Have kept my 
cows always in good condition; have fed hay usually 
during winter; when I feed straw, some meal is fed, so 
as to make the keeping equal to good hay; from about 
the first of March, I feed two quarts of corn or barley 
meal to each cow per day until the pasture is good; 
they are kept in good stables, and during summer are 
put up night and morning in a milking barn, near and 
convenient to the cheese room, and fed the whey with 
meal or shorts, the quantity depending on the situation 
of the pasture; commence feeding corn about the mid¬ 
dle of August once a day, and the whey with shorts or 
meal once. 
This fall after the corn was injured by the frost, fed 
a half bushel of apples to each cow per day, and late 
pumpkins, continuing to feed the whey, with shorts or 
meal, until they were dried off; have kept twenty cows 
for the dairy and one for the family. The yield of 
cheese per cow the past season, six hundred pounds, 
sold at seven cents; I think the extra feed, made at 
least one hundred pounds per cow; the cost of shorts 
was one dollar per cow; the meal being the product of 
the farm has not been in any manner taken into the ac¬ 
count. The season has been dry and not favorable for 
dairying. I am convinced that good feeding pays well; 
the milk drawn from the cow is a monstrous draft, and 
if they are not well fed, they will run down and be poor 
in the fall, and the yield of milk small during the latter 
part of the season. The practice of sowing corn to 
feed in the fall, should, and I think will become general; 
if cows are well fed, they will be in good condition in 
the fall, which enables us to turn our old cows and such 
as are not good milkers, for beef to good advantage. I 
should put the cows up to milk if I did not feed; the 
trouble of feeding after they are up, is not great. The 
whey runs from the box in which the cheese is made, 
into a vat, and from that, by pump logs it is drawn in¬ 
to pails in the alley of the milking house. The cows 
being in two rows, with their heads to the alley, and a 
tub for each; the meal bin is at one end of the alley; 
from this to the cheese room, a distance of some ten 
feet, plank are laid to walk on, and a temporary roof 
over, so that we pass from the milking house to the 
room where the cheese is made, without being exposed 
to rain or mud; still this space is open for the circula¬ 
tion of air. I should feed my cows during summer, if 
it did not add to the quantity of cheese, as it is a satis¬ 
faction to see them look fine, and in knowing that they 
feel comfortable. Chauncey Beckwith. 
Writers for Agricultural Papers. 
There appears to be a desire among many writers 
and readers of Agricultural papers to interdict from the 
columns of the press all writers who are not rigidly 
practical men, and to my comprehension this is an er¬ 
ror that should be discountenanced. 
Are we to weigh every measure every thing by its 
mere worth in dollars and cents'? True, a man may 
be practical in the growing of flowers, or the dressing 
of a set for a finger-ring or a breast-pin, and might be 
admitted on the one hand as practical, or on the other 
as one who has grown rich. Yet there may be others 
much better qualified to give directions than either the 
one or the other. Were a man required to teach one 
how to handle a spade or a hoe, then we might look for 
the practical man. Or were we giving lessons in mak¬ 
ing money, then the man who would best give demon¬ 
strations how to live on nothing, and spend no money 
for comfort or luxury, would be the man to look for. 
The great bug-bear is theory; that is the stumbling 
block. Now this thing of theory is as essential to the 
thinking planter or farmer who desires improvement, as 
is any other thing. Hypothesis is quite another matter. 
The one lays down reasons from known premises, de¬ 
duced from facts. The other assumes premises, and is 
too prone to be a dreamer. 
The lamented Willis Gaylord, was one of the most 
cogent and able writers we have ever had, yet he was 
unable to practice the theories he had deduced from his 
early labors, which were even then limited from bodily 
infirmity. 
I have been a tolerably close observer of men and 
things, and I think I should not err, if I said-—as a rule 
laboring men are not in the main good at directing, nor 
