‘Ibt RURAL NEW-YORKER 
1761 
A USEFUL FEED.—Cabbage has not as yet com¬ 
manded a price at up-State loading points that 
equals its feeding value in the dairy cow’s ration. 
This is the verdict of men experienced in feeding, 
and the Farm Bureaus of the State are advising 
dairy farmers to feed their cabbage rather than to 
accept $8 a ton for it. unless there is a great plenty 
of other succulent forage feeds on the farm, and the 
cabbage is depended on as a cash crop. 
VALUE OF REFUSE LEAVES.—Of course, it is 
understood that the refuse or roughage _ 
of the cabbage crop is richer in feeding 
value than the marketable cabbage is. 
The outer leaves store up a wider range 
of nutrients which are of high feeding 
value than do the blanched inner 
leaves. Tf a crop of considerable size 
is grown there is always an abundance 
of this roughage to feed far into the 
Winter in any case. But if only two 
to live acres are raised, with, a dairy of 
10 to 20 cows, then there is need of 
knowing some of the actual food value 
of the market crop itself, as compared 
with the price to be obtained at loading 
points. Cortland County, N. Y.. is per¬ 
haps the biggest cabbage-growing 
county in the State. It is also one of 
the leading dairy counties. The two 
industries have combined in an ideal 
way, and dairymen of the county are 
well aware of the feeding value of the 
crop. 
CABBAGE AND ROOTS.—Miles J. 
Peek, one of the county’s most exper¬ 
ienced dairymen and now manager of 
lx)veil Farms, says there is no feed 
like cabbage to produce milk, unless 
possibly it be the root crops. Not so 
much can be grown per acre in tonnage 
ns in roots, as good soil will produce 
1,000 bushels per acre, or 30 tons, of 
roots. An occasional crop of Cortland 
County cabbage has equalled this ton¬ 
nage, yet the average tonnage of cab¬ 
bage per acre would perhaps run less 
than would roots. Mr. Peck has grown 
both quite extensively. He says that 
so far this year cabbage would bring 
more if marketed through the dairy 
than if sold to the dealers; and he sold 
two carloads of early cabbage at 812 
a ton, minus icing and other shipping 
expenses. The present price is 87 to 
88. Often official milk records are 
made with cabbage as the succulent 
food. In the bean-growing counties, 
where sheep and cows are wintered on 
bean straw, cabbage is particularly 
useful with the ration. Sheep are very 
fond of cabbage, and it is especially 
useful in growing hothouse lambs, as 
it increases the flow of milk in sheep 
as well as in dairy cows quite remark¬ 
ably. 
INCREASING MILK FLOW.—Per 
Imps Reed Brothers, the well-known 
cabbage growers of Cortland, offer as 
definite information as to feeding cab¬ 
bage as any of the dairy farmers. E. 
N. Reed says that for four successive 
years in his Fall dairy of Ilolsteius that 
would he giving about 14 40-quart cans 
of milk a day lie has noted that there 
w ill be a gain of about two cans of 
milk a day after adding cabbage rough- 
age to the ration, or a shrinkage of 
about that amount when the cabbage 
is removed. Each cow would be eating 
about 40 pounds of silage, 2.7 pounds 
of cabbage roughage, 10 pounds of 
Alfalfa hay and one pound of 20 per 
cent protein grain for every four 
pounds of milk given. Perhaps the results would 
not be quite so marked if the ration were not so well 
balanced as the one fed by Mr. Reed. Roughage 
shrinks some soon after it is cut. A dairy of 30 
cows that, eats 1.000 pounds of roughage per day. 
allowing for shrinkage, making a gain of two cans 
of milk a day at 8-3 a can, or a little better if the 
butterfat test is good, will market the roughage at 
812 a ton. As stated, the cabbage itself will not 
return quite so good results. 
ROUGHAGE NUTRIENTS—The following table 
gives the nutrients in various kinds of roughage: 
100 Lbs. 
Dry Mat- Digestible Pro- 
Total Nutrient — 
Food 
ter—Lbs. 
teius—Lbs. 
Lbs.—Digestible 
Cabbage . 
2.30 
8.40 
Bean straw.. 
. . . 1)1.00 
4.00 
50 10 
Pea straw.... 
... 92.90 
5.90 
53 60 
Pea silage.... 
... 23 20 
2 10 
17.00 
Corn silage... 
... 26.30 
1.10 
16.80 
GAINS IN 
MILK.—One 
man’s pre-war figures. 
with 24 cows that had all freshened in February 
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price of milk. After the roughage was exhausted 
he began feeding corn silage, and his milk flow 
dropped perceptibly. Cabbage is largely water, as 
will be seen by the table of nutrients. But there is 
something very appetizing to it. for animal feeding, 
and its very wateriness when combined with other 
foods that furnish a well-balanced ration, greatly 
enhances the milk flow at a season of the year when 
succulent or juicy foods are scarce, and most 
foods, even silage, are concentrated in make-up 
AVOIDING CABBAGE FLAVOR.— 
There is a danger in feeding of taint¬ 
ing the milk unless certain precautions 
are taken. It should never be fed just 
previous to milking, but, rather, di¬ 
rectly after milking. This precaution 
alone enables the dairyman supplying 
the ordinary milk market to give abso¬ 
lutely satisfactory results. The milk 
should never be left standing in the 
barn or near any odor. If one is mak¬ 
ing butter cabbage should not be fed 
in excess, and the milk should at once 
lie run over a milk cooler in a clean 
room. Cortland dairymen often feed 
cabbage all Winter. It is not harmed 
by freezing, if it can remain frozen 
until time for feeding. At least it 
should not freeze and thaw too 
many times. It is the freezing and 
thawing rather than the freezing that 
hurts it. The heads are often stored 
under about a foot of straw placed 
stem end down directly on the ground 
in a sheltered place where the snow 
will drift over it. If in the woods not 
half as much covering will be needed. 
These will do to sell for market at any 
time by retrimming. The roughage is 
thrown in heaps in the field as the 
heads are harvested, and these heaps 
are usually drawn to the barn later, 
at the grower’s convenience, and 
thrown in a big pile near the barn. 
When the pile freezes, as it will, each 
feeding is drawn into the barn 12 to 
24 hours before feeding that the frost 
may have a chance to come out at least 
partially. m. g. f. 
Jlcad of a Brown Swiss Cow. Fiy. ,~>S0 
Far mere tics at the Sodas, N. Y., Fruit Farm, Fiy. US 1 
and March, excepting one, and that in October, were 
as follows: Beginning October 1. after feeding corn 
fodder twice a day since August 1. be began to feed 
cabbage roughage, moderately at first, and later uP. 
they would eat up clean until December 1. He also 
fed a light feed of hay night and morning—about 10 
pounds. Ilis September milk check, while still on 
corn fodder, was $1 5S; his October check was 8272: 
his November check was $236. This shows a gain 
in two month of 8102, allowing for differences in the 
Buying all the Grain 
If a person started out in the whole¬ 
sale dau-y business, and only had 25 acres 
of land and no pasture, would it pay? 
Could he m a be out if he had to buy all 
the feed? If so, how should he go 
about it? If he could work or rent ou 
shares a larger farm, say 50 acres, in 
conjunction with his own. what should 
he raise? Wlmt kind of cows for dairy, 
and what would they cost? What would 
it cost to feed them (per cow per day) 
if all the grain and feed had to be bought, 
and if the bay and some of the grain 
could be raised? What will be needed in 
quantity of hay and grain to feed a cow 
one whole year? E. G. T. 
Scotia, N. Y. 
N O one but a milk dealer has been 
able to figure out so far that it 
pays to keep a dairy and buy all the 
feed. Tt is generally conceded that 
market milk pays better than the man¬ 
ufacturing of butter or cheese. Our 
best agricultural college professors 
have struggled with the problem from 
time to time, and the Dairymen’s 
League has tried to boost the price, 
but tlie League has never managed to 
get for the milk what the professor 
assures us that it costs. 
The answer to this is that the dairy¬ 
man is more or less of a philanthro¬ 
pist. The people must have milk; but 
so far the people have not consented to 
pay what it is worth. But. rather than 
let these people get indigestion, and 
their babies die of malnutrition, the da’ymen have 
struggled along from year to year, hop'ng that 
ultimately a race may grow up that will appreciate 
their efforts and pay them for their work. There is 
no doubt but that, as a whole, the people are be¬ 
coming more intelligent and broad-minded. But 
still there are plenty of the kind left that think it 
is perfectly fair that they should labor but six or 
eight hours a day, while others work '12 or 14 for 
less wages. Some of these folk even imagine that 
Cabbage as a Milk Producing Feed 
