1236 
THE RURAL) NEW-YORKER 
November lo, 
Live Stock and Dairy 
FARM HORSES FOR NEW YORK. 
I will try to give an account of my 
management with the mares and colts 
shown at Fig. 479. My own circum¬ 
stances are so like many others that per¬ 
haps it may help the argument of better 
horses on the farm. I bought these mares 
when they were five years old; weighing 
1,350 pounds each. It seemed to me they 
would raise good colts. They were young, 
sound, longbodied and roomy, half sisters, 
sired by a purebred gray Perclieron. I 
only owned a five-acre place, and worked 
my team out (being a baek-to-tlie-lander), 
so I decided to take a farm on shares and 
raise colts. My next move was to find 
a good sire to breed to. I found him 
about 15 miles away. He is a purebred 
black Perclieron, young, sound, fair 
traveler and a quiet worker, said to weigh 
1,700 pounds; kind as you could wish for. 
I began to work those mares more care¬ 
fully ; by that I mean I didn’t let them 
slip nor let them back or hold back a 
heavy load that would shove or whip 
them around. It does not hurt them to 
pull on good footing. I did as much Fall 
plowing as possible so as to lighten their 
Spring work, for the colts would come in 
April. During last Winter they did a 
good many days’ work off the farm, and 
by drawing out the manure from the cow 
barns every day they got their daily ex¬ 
TRUTH ABOUT PURE BREEDS. 
A well-known authority in dairy hus¬ 
bandry said to me the other day, as we 
stood upon the station platform waiting 
for a train, “A farmer cannot afford not 
to make a start in purebred cattle, for 
the time is soon tcoming when the calf, 
not the milk, will be the chief dairy pro¬ 
duct.” The question of whether or not 
to make an effort to get into purcbreds 
is racking the soul of many a farmer in 
moderate circumstances, who feels that 
there is little in the ordinary dairy, either 
in money or satisfaction, but who quails 
before the idea of putting the price of 
a fair-sized herd of ordinary cows into a 
few individuals. The “average farmer” 
figures closely; if he didn't he wouldn’t 
be a farmer long, unless upon a rented 
farm, and while he may have a small sur¬ 
plus in the bank, there are lines across 
his forehead, a droop to his shoulders, 
and big knuckles upon his hands that tell 
how it came there. To such a man, the 
investment of a hundred dollars, or more,' 
in a young calf, and from two to three 
times that sum in a mature cow looks 
large; it wouldn’t be strange if to most 
of them it looked rash, to the point of 
folly. Yet a neighbor of mine who was, 
and still is. a young farmer in very mod¬ 
erate circumstances, did invest several 
hundred dollars, some 10 years ago, in 
four or five purebred calves—they were 
cheaper then—and since that time, so he 
told me, he has sold over four thousand 
GOOD FARM MARES AND TIIEIR GOETS. Fig. 479. 
ercise. During this time I kept them in 
good working order but not fat; a 16-foot 
box-stall kept them very comfortable. 
The grey mare’s colt came first. My 
bedroom was not over 50 feet from her; 
we never heard a sound. Mother and 
colt were both up looking over the gate 
in the morning, asking for breakfast for 
two. The mother was kind, proud and 
perfectly willing to nave me handle her 
colt. I gave her a pail of warm water, 
warm bran mash and a light haying. 
Roth colts came big-boned, straight, stout 
fellows. I accustomed them to being 
handled from the first, feet as well as 
head; they were halter-broke when 10 
days old. and never allowed to go out 
with their mothers except to pasture. 
Take the mares away for an hour at first 
and they soon learn that the colts will 
be there when they get back. These 
mares put in the oats, 14 acres, last 
Spring, fitted the corn and potato ground, 
also all the farm work since. Colts were 
weaned when six months old. I think 
those mares have grown some since I 
bought them. I favor this breed for the 
farmers, because they are capable of 
handling all kinds of farm machinery. 
They are fair travelers; hitch them sin¬ 
gle or double and they will hold their 
heads up and take you to town plenty 
fast enough. I consider a team weighing 
from 2,700 to 3,000 pounds better adapted 
to hilly farms than the heavier grades. 
Of course I have had my trials, one 
had the scours, one the navel didn’t heal 
well at first; one got stepped on. etc., 
but they seem to come out all right. One 
precaution I took (my neighbor laughed) 
was to pull the mare’s shoes off before 
she foaled, in case she is careless (and 
the bay mare was) and steps on her colt, 
a bare foot won’t injure the bone as an 
iron-shod one will. Clifford j. reed. 
“Is Dobbs a hard-working man?” “I 
guess you can call him that. Any kind 
of work seems hard to him.”—Birming¬ 
ham Age Herald. 
dollars in produce from them, and their 
successors. 
Has it paid him? I judge so, not from 
any figures that he gave me, but from 
the fact that a few weeks ago he sold 
off all his herd, except the bull, and has 
since invested part of the proceeds in 
five young heifer calves that cost several 
times the amount paid for his first pure¬ 
bred youngsters. That he has faith in 
purcbreds for the average farmer is evi¬ 
dent, for he is but an average farmer so 
far as finances go. though many a farmer 
who considers himself very much above 
the average might envy him his shrewd¬ 
ness. energy, and skill. This neighbor, in 
answer to my question, told me that he 
did not see how any dairym .n could af¬ 
ford not to get into purebreds; $200 for 
a cow did not seem any larger to him 
now than $50 used to. So here the uni¬ 
versity professor and the practical farmer 
are in entire accord, for once at least. 
But all this may not convince the aver¬ 
age farmer that he should buy some pure¬ 
bred calves or cows, and I am not at 
all sure that it should. Why? Well, 
there is more to the purebred cattle bus¬ 
iness than simply owning blooded stock. 
If the man behind the gun counts for 
anything upon a battleship, the man in 
front of the cow at feeding time, and be¬ 
side her with the milk pail, counts for 
equally as much in the dairy barn. The 
purest of purebreds would become a 
scrub in some stables. Another farmer 
of my acquaintance bought three pure¬ 
bred cows some time ago, paying a good 
price for them. He feeds them as he does 
the rest of his herd, and milks them 
twice daily instead of three times, as their 
former owner did, and he has the pleas¬ 
ure of knowing that he owns some blooded 
stock, little more. Those tremendous 
udders are a delight to look at, but they 
can soon be milked out into one pail if 
the raw material for their product is not 
furnished at the other end. Even then, 
will the milk pay interest upon the in¬ 
vestment and all the other charges that | 
ride a dairy herd like an Old Man of 
the Sea? No, not at present prices for 
milk. There must be some other source 
of income from purebreds if they are to 
pay their way. Grades at half their cost 
may be made to do as well at the pail. 
This brings us back to the professor’s 
dictum; the calf is the important pro¬ 
duct. But will any calf from any pure¬ 
bred cow bring a high price? If it will, 
breeding blooded stock is a soft snap. 
What does it matter what a cow costs 
if you’ean sell a calf from her every year 
for a hundred dollars or so? But you 
can’t; sometimes you are mighty lucky 
to get any calf at all, for high produc¬ 
tivity and fecundity often fail to meet 
in the same animal. Even if you have no 
ill luck in this line you will learn that 
the value of a purebred calf depends chiefly 
upon her breeding, and to know what this 
breeding has been, and should continue to 
be, requires a knowledge that does not 
come as instinct. If you are not willing 
to take up the study of bovine family 
trees, and to learn to recognize names ' 
that sound like those of a Russian count ! 
as readily as you would those of your 
neighbors, you would better think twice 
before starting in to breed blooded cat¬ 
tle. This knowledge can be acquired by 
any man of average intelligence if he 
is willing to devote time, thought, and 
study to it, as can the proper methods 
of handling purebred cattle; but not every 
man is. Cattle breeding is a science and 
art worthy of the highest intelligence, and 
unless intelligence is always on the job, 
disaster lies straight ahead. M. b. d. 
SIX PREMIUM GRADE HOLSTEINS. 
Having seen the statement given by 
Mr. Chas. Thackery and Mr. F. L. Smith 
of their dairy record for one year, which 
is fine, allow me to step to the front and j 
present a record of my herd of six grade 
Holstein cows, for one year from Jan¬ 
uary 1, 1912, to January 1, 1913. There 
was no change of cows, their ages rang¬ 
ing from three to eight years, milk being 
delivered to Borden’s at Otego, saving 
not less than two quarts daily for family 
use. I fed nearly the same as Mr. Smith. 
I made no extra effort to make a record, 
taking the same care, and feeding them 
as I always do. I give number of pounds 
of milk, price per hundred pounds and 
amount of check for each month. 
No. lbs. 
Price per 
Amt. of 
1912 
Milk 
hundred 
Check 
January .... 
1.312 
$1.85 
$24.27 
February .... 
1,346 
1.S0 
24.23 
M:i roll. 
2.447 
1.65 
40.3S 
April. 
4.303 
1.50 
64.55 
May . 
6.831 
1.25 
85.39 
June . 
6.620 
1.10 
72.82 
J uly .. 
5.276 
1.30 
68.59 
August . 
5.048 
1.70 
85.81 
September .. 
4.717 
1.75 
82.55 
October. 
3.813 
1.80 
69.63 
November .. . 
2.710 
1.95 
51.49 
December . . . 
1,967 
1.90 
37.37 
Total . 
.$707.08 
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Otsego Co., N. Y. 
THE HIGH COST OF MILK. 
I noticed on page 909 the article on 
the cost of milk, and that Mr. Thomas 
declares he sees no way to solve his 
problem. There are two ways which 
occur to me; the one to buy feeders and 
use the crop to turn them into beef. On p 
the other hand, cut out the cattle now j 
on band and buy butter cows; Jerseys 1 
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better than all other breeds which have 
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herd he will have a money-maker, as 
there is always a market for good butter. 
The skim-milk will go to the calves and 
pigs and the buttermilk to pigs and 
chickens. Using this method he con¬ 
centrates his efforts on pork and butter. 
He need only leave the farm one day a 
week to sell his produce, and I believe 
that by owning a superior grade of cat¬ 
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will very soon have his fortune made if 
he use the same amount of intelligence 
and energy as I presume he does now 
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Bucks Co., Pa. 
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• * 
