1912. 
THE RURAL NE>W -YORKER 
11 ©1 
THE KINKS IN A DAIRY FARM. 
How We Took Them Out. 
, Part III. 
We were more than desperate by this 
time. There seemed no possible way 
of making botii ends meet, and in my 
desperation I borrowed $1,200 from my 
foreman (he had no cows to support 
and could therefore save his money), 
and with this sum in my pocket I went 
out to the central part of our State, de¬ 
termined to bring home some good cows 
or go bankrupt in the attempt. For two 
days I rode over a famous Holstein cat¬ 
tle country, but they raised nothing 
there save purebreds, and iny little 
$1,200 looked pretty small. I made an¬ 
other 100-mile jump into a country 
where they had some grade cattle as 
well as the full bloods, and there after 
a day of argument I managed to pur¬ 
chase 14 very good grade Holsteins. 
These animals I took home, and when 
at last they stood upon our farm each 
animal represented nearly a hundred- 
dollar bill. The price of good cows had 
jumped to about $60 at this time, but 
I did not care to breathe a word of 
the cost of my cattle to anyone outside 
of my immediate family and my faith¬ 
ful lieutenant. My neighbors would 
have called me crazy had they known 
the price I paid for those grade Hol¬ 
steins. 
A dry season saw us entering Winter 
with less hay than the year before and 
considerably more stock. It was unfor¬ 
tunately not all milk-giving stock, and 
that Winter saw us once more on the 
toboggan slide. We had, however, some 
very good stock by this time. Our pre¬ 
vious experience in buying had taught 
us to be wary of everyone who adver¬ 
tised stock for sale. We no longer 
bought the cows that farmers wanted to 
sell to us; on the contrary, we had be¬ 
gun the practice of purchasing what we 
considered was the best cow in a man's 
dairy. We always had to pay a few 
dollars more than we did for the aver¬ 
age animal, but our per cent, of failures 
was a great deal lower than it had ever 
been before, and the cows were usually 
worth the extra money. These cows 
were all good producers and our grade 
Holsteins did wonderfully well that 
Winter, but still we kept going back¬ 
wards. The leak had not been entirely 
stopped by improving the dairy. An¬ 
other conference was called, and at this 
conference we chased the “deficit” into 
the subject of crops. 
We had been having, in common with 
the rest of the country, a number of 
dry Summers, one after another, until 
at last they had become an important 
element in the farming question. The 
last season had been so dry that some 
of our springs gave out—springs that 
had never been dry before, in the mem¬ 
ory of the oldest inhabitant—and there 
was every probability that those dry 
seasons would continue. We must there¬ 
fore begin to farm with the dry weather 
constantly in our minds. In past years 
some of our more progressive farmers 
had built silos for their corn fodder, 
and from some inquiry among the silo 
users we gathered that they really were 
of great benefit. Up to that time we 
had never owned a silo, in spite of the 
fact that we had some of the best corn 
land in the county. 
Our land is a tine, red, loamy soil, 
somewhat rocky, of course, very steep 
in spots, but withal of a nature to hold 
all the fertilizer one may give it and 
return good crops for fair treatment. 
Knowing our land, and upon the advice 
of the users of corn fodder, we decided 
to plunge on a silo. We therefore pur¬ 
chased a wooden silo with a capacity of 
over 100 tons of silage. We were rather 
late in getting our order placed, had 
trouble with the freight after it was 
placed and then had trouble in getting 
the silo up after it came, but at last it 
was in position and ready for the corn. 
In the meantime a heavy frost had 
touched our valley and the problem of 
how we could make the best silage out 
of that frozen corn confronted us. We 
were infants in the corn industry, so we 
consulted with our silo-owning friends. 
They were prolific with advice, but no 
two of them agreed except upon the 
one subject. “You want to get it in be¬ 
fore the frost hits it,” said they. We 
listened patiently and meekly to this 
kind of advice as long as we could 
stand it, and then we grasped the situa¬ 
tion by all its different horns and pro¬ 
ceeded to fill our own silo on our own 
judgment. The frozen corn was cut as 
fine as we could possibly get it and we 
kept a stream of water playing in the 
silo day and night as long as we were 
running the corn in. The water proved 
to be the answer and made for us as 
fine a grade of silage as one could ask 
for. When our advisers saw what ex¬ 
cellent fodder we had they straightway 
one and all claimed that the silo was 
filled entirely at their suggestion. Fact 
is, we have never yet been able to find 
a man who did not tell us exactly how 
it should be done. With the aid of that 
silage we wintered more stock than we 
had been able to winter since the dry 
seasons began, and we came through to 
Spring with a small amount of old hay 
on hand. Plowing up the land to put 
in corn soon got us in the habit of rais¬ 
ing oats, and of course we seeded our 
land down with the oats, using all the 
manure we could scrape together as fer¬ 
tilizer. Dry seasons keep right on com¬ 
ing since we installed that silo, but they 
no longer hold the terrors for us that 
they once did. With each year we are 
cutting more and more hay from the 
new seeded pieces, and getting great 
returns from our silage. In fact, we 
cannot now understand how the farm 
got along without the silo as long as 
it did. The same thing is also true of 
the other improvements that we have in¬ 
stalled. Early in the game we came to 
the conclusion that farming was a 
mighty hard business, and ever since 
then we have attempted to install every 
actual labor-saving improvement that we 
thought we could manage to pay for. 
And with each improvement we keep on 
wondering how we formerly lived with¬ 
out it. 
And now I must take you back to that 
calf bubble. The year that our silo was 
completed we began to learn what poor 
stock we had been trying to turn into 
good cows. I refer, of course, to those 
choice heifer calves purchased from our 
neighbors. Heifer after heifer came 
in and began to give milk, nearly 20 of 
them came in that Fall, and out of that 
20 there were not over eight that were 
worth keeping. This was a body blow, 
and staggered us. For a few weeks we 
went around with lumps of ice on our 
heads to ease the pain caused by the 
reduction in their size. But the situa¬ 
tion had to be met some way, and the 
quickest way out seemed to be to sell 
the remaining calves. The first beef 
dealer that came along drove the whole 
bunch of calves, yearlings and heifers, 
away with him, except of course the 
eight good ones. Ralph s. ives. 
Delaware Co., N. Y. 
Abnormal Teeth. 
What can be done for an 18-months-'old 
heifer, as she has teeth like an old cow 12 
years old, wide apart and sharp and 
spindly and black. I thought about pulliug 
them out. M. p. 
Long Island. 
She should be shedding the middle pair 
of incisor teeth now or quite soon, but 
the abnormal teeth may be pulled, pair 
by pair, as soon as it is seen that the 
gums around their bases are red and in¬ 
flamed. If inflammation is not present, let 
the teeth alone. a. s. a. 
Lameness. 
I have a gray mare which has gone lame 
in left front quarter; cannot tell where 
lameness is. She began to walk as if she 
was sore or stiff about five weeks ago, and 
has been getting worse, until I cannot put 
her on the road now. 1 thought it was 
the foot, but a competent horseshoer could 
find nothing wrong when he shod her two 
weeks ago. I removed shoe a few days 
ago and kept the foot wet with cold water, 
but this seemed to do no good. For a few 
times she seemed to get better after resting 
a couple of days after a trip on the road. 
Now is very lame all the time. She stands 
with foot pointed ahead and toe ou ground 
sometimes. I have tried her at every 
point from withers to the bottom of foot, 
but cannot make her flinch anywhere ex¬ 
cept when striking the bottom of foot with 
hammer, and am not sure that this hurts 
her. as she does not seem to flinch much. 
Pennsylvania. a. h. j. 
As the foot is pointed forward when 
she stands at ease the foot no doubt is 
the seat of the lameness, and rheumatism 
may be present, provided no trace of a nail 
prick or corn can be found. On general 
principles we would advise you to clip the 
hair from the hoof-head and blister the 
lioof-head repeatedly with cerate of can- 
tharides rubbed in for 15 minutes. Wash 
the blister off in three days and repeat 
every two or three weeks until she goes 
sound. Remove shoe before blistering and 
let her have a month’s rest in stable. 
a. s. A. 
Stiffnesa of Cow. 
I have a six-year-old Jersey cow that 
freshened July 9, and did well in all re¬ 
spects ; until yesterday nothing noticeable 
went wrong with her. I saw her at three 
p. m. when she seemed to be all right, but 
when driven with the herd at 6.30 she 
seemed stiff, and when lifting hind feet 
raised them very high thrusting them far 
forward; seemed very eager to eat, biting 
it dirt, refuse litter, foul weeds, anything 
which her nose touched, for she could not 
see at all, and had to be forced in any di¬ 
rection which she was wanted to take in 
getting her to the stable. Her horns 
were cold to her head. I gave, in mess, 
a large dose of saltpetre and ginger which 
she refused, and seemed utterly bereft of 
sense; weak, once falling, but got up with¬ 
out aid. She ate mess and hay during 
night and seems better this a. m., but little 
stiff in forelegs. Milk flow has not lessened. 
What is the trouble and remedy? 
New York. M. o. w. 
Lightning stroke sometimes causes such 
symptoms as you describe, or they might 
possibly come from some derangement of 
the digestive organs. In the latter trouble, 
however, it would be usual for the milk 
flow to diminish. We are quite at a loss to 
give a confident opinion. a . 8. a. 
Broken Wind. 
I have a young mhre about seven years 
old that 1 bought about 15 months ago. 
Whenever she is worked or driven (not 
hard, either), she puffs and pants very 
hard. I think she has ever since I have 
had her, though more noticeable lately. 
Can you teli me the cause of it and what 
can be done to cure or relieve it? 
Connecticut. e. w. h. 
The mare may have been overheated or 
she may be afflicted with heaves (broken 
wind). Feed wet oat straw in Winter and 
grass in Summer in place of hay, but do 
not feed any bulky food just before work, 
or work her soon after a meal. If she 
has a long, coarse coat of hair clip the 
hair from her belly to a line with breech¬ 
ing and breast collar straps and from legs 
above knees and hocks. Carrots would he 
good for her, and also allow free access to 
rock salt. Give the drinking water before 
feeding. See that the collar does not pinch. 
A. s. A. 
Mr. Dairyman! Never before have conditions been more fav- 
orable for big dairy profits. Perhaps, never again will you have 
such an opportunity to coin money from your cows. Act quick— 
I mjr get busy—“make hay while the sun shines. ’ Feed prices are way 
W down. Right NOW is the time of your life to make big money — push your 
' milk production to the limit — force the maximum flow from every cow you ow 
— roll in the dollars while you’ve got the chance — it may not last long. Here’s 
way to do it — we’ve proved it —we’ll prove it to you 
Mix three parts of 
Schumacher Feed 
Ik Wonderful Milk-Making Ration 
Nowhere in the world can you get a better combination than three parts Schumacher 
Feed and one part high iprotein concentrate. It is simply marvelous how cows 
a relish its appetizing qualities and how it increases the flow. It also affords that a 
much needed variety of grain products which you know are so essential. jfl 
Cows eat it eagerly—like it—thrive better on it—give more milk—keep in better con- dtt 
dition. Composed of finely ground corn.oats, wheat and barley products, perfectly 
blended, kiln-dried and scientifically balanced—there’s nothing like It for milk produc- 
tion when used as above. Nothing that can touch it, price considered. You certainly 
ought to try it. Even alone it is a wonderful feed, and at the prices today, you can’t 
afford to feed any other. At your dealer’s; if he can’t supply you write us. 
>e THE QUAKER OATS COMPANY 
n.fmftigBPh*, Chicago, u. s. a. 
Never Before! Never Again? 
£ Such Bumper Dairy Profits.^ i 
