DAIRYING ON THE PLAINS, 
23 
sandy loam soils do not make good soils for building. The wall 
may be built two feet thick of sod, then a good roof of either lum- 
ber or shingles should cover the building which is to be the 
winter shelter of the dairy cow. Some make the covering of 
rough boards and lay sod on top of the boards. Some thatch 
the building with sorghum or other rough hay. All the cover¬ 
ings except those of wood must be frequently renewed or they 
leak so badly that the building ceases to be a shelter. 
Results. Comparatively small returns from dairying on the 
Plains are the rule. One creamery man remarked to me that u a 
settler could milk a three-year-old steer out of a cow every year.” 
That may be true but in order to do that the cow must be. fed, 
and it will be a good steady job for one man to milk twenty cows 
and raise feed for them. If then, three-year-old steers are worth 
$35 each, a man by hard and confining work, may get $700 for 
his years work. This is a theoretical illustration. Usually one 
man and his whole family manage the twenty cows or less. 
Some parties near Akron report a return of five dollars per cow 
during five months in 1903 from grade Shorthorns. This is a re¬ 
port from only one season’s work, presumably with a selected herd 
of cows. 
One of the oldest dairymen in Burlington, a man who never 
quit the business since he came to the country fifteen years ago, 
milks twenty grade shorthorn cows and heifers every summer, 
He tries to raise good calves as he counts the calves as his profit. 
His estimate is that the average range cow running on buffalo 
grass and getting no other feed will give about two dollars worth 
of cream per month during six months of each year. By milking 
enough cows the settler can make his living from the cream sold, 
and the calves will be the gain. 
At Wray the estimates were similar. That is the cream will 
make expenses leaving the calves clear gain, and the weight of 
evidence all around pointed the same way. Of course, the better 
beef animal the calf is, the greater the gain, and the nearer the 
cow approached the dairy type the more cream she would have to 
yield in order to make up to her owner the difference between her 
bony calf and the fine calf of the grade shorthorn. 
We may safely count dairying, in a modest way, a success 
from the standpoint of the settler in eastern Colorado. This is 
especially true when it is practiced in connection with the pro¬ 
duction of medium to good feeding steers. Of course choice 
steers cannot be produced in connection with dairying on the 
range without using so much feed that the cost is likely to be too 
great for the returns obtained. If the dual purpose cow has a 
place anvwhere it is on the Plains of eastern Colorado, where men 
