6 
American Agriculturist, July 7,1923 
Our earnings in 
hauling your products 
T HE Government does not guarantee us any 
income. 
The rates fixed by the Interstate Commerce 
Commission are intended to be such as will enable 
the railroads as a whole to earn at least 5/4% on 
the value of their properties. Out of this net in¬ 
come they must meet interest on debt, pay divi¬ 
dends to the stockholders and build up a surplus 
as required by prudent business management. 
The railroads earned 3.31% in 1921, and 4.14% 
in 1922. This year they hope to do better. They 
must do better if necessary new capital is to be 
attracted to railroad development. 
It was only during the period of Government 
operation thatrailroad net income was guaranteed. 
That income was based on pre-war earnings, and 
averaged 5%3% on the value of railroad property. 
If any railroad fails to earn 5M% on its invest¬ 
ment, the Government doesn’t make up the 
difference; and the law provides that anything 
earned above 6% must be equally divided with 
the Government. 
As stated by the Interstate Commerce Com¬ 
mission in a recent decision, the rate provision 
of the Transportation Act “carries with it no 
guarantee”, but “it is, instead, a limitation”. 
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I 
Do Cows Need Exercise? 
The Possible Danger of Continuous Stabling 
dairymen are installing some system 
whereby the cows have access to water 
at all times. This is sound dairy prac¬ 
tice and a good investment. Nobody 
questions the fact that it is better for 
a cow to have water always before her 
so that she may drink at will, rather 
than be obliged 
to try to drink 
enough at one 
time to last her 
for twelve or 
even twenty four 
hours. But out 
of these systems 
of stabling water¬ 
ing devices there 
is very apt to 
grow up the cus¬ 
tom of continuous 
stabling, the cows 
never being re¬ 
leased from the 
stanchions for 
months at a 
stretch. Our 
father s — o r 
grandfathers at 
any rate—never had any doubts about 
the necessity of exercise for cows. 
Rather they went to the opposite ex¬ 
treme. They thought of the barn as a 
sort of night-time jail or lockup for 
cows, but as a rule they spent the day¬ 
light hours in the barnyard around the 
strawstack. Now I believe we have 
wasted a good deal of sympathy over 
these cows. Let us remember that the 
cow was native to a region where the 
climate was fairly severe, but perhaps 
less so than in the Northeastern States. 
We spend a good deal of time and 
money in providing warm stables, but 
in my own 
thought it is in 
order to keep our 
water pipes from 
bursting rather 
than from any 
fear that a well 
fed, healthy cow 
is really uncom¬ 
fortable at a tem¬ 
perature a few 
degrees below 
freezing. 
I remember 
reading a report 
concerning a Hol¬ 
stein cow in Mich¬ 
igan that made 
a rather remark¬ 
able 30-day record in a stall with only 
a single thickness of boards between 
her and zero temperatures outside, 
and where much of the time it was 
below freezing, but of course she was 
dry, well bedded and abundantly fed. 
From personal experience I feel sure 
that once we have water buckets in¬ 
stalled, there is a constant temptation 
to pass on to continuous stabling and 
I do not believe that there is any 
authoritative teaching as to either the 
wisdom or the folly of this plan. 
Now to begin with, it is possible to 
say a good deal in favor of the practice. 
For one thing it is a labor-saving 
method. To let a cow loose and turn 
her out and then get her back into 
her stall again is a considerable item 
in her daily care. 
Then there is another item perhaps 
rarely considered. Cows exercising in 
an open barnyard are certain to leave 
there a very considerable proportion 
of their manure — a much larger pro¬ 
portion than would be indicated merely 
by the time spent outside. In those 
days when a good horse represented 
the fastest method of cross country 
locomotion, Henry Ward Beecher is 
said to have loved the fast stepping 
ponies, his argument being that “time 
lost on the road is gone forever.” Well, 
I judge that manure deposited in the 
barnyard has as a rule gone beyond the 
ken of the dairyman for all time. I 
am going to hazard the guess that two 
hours a day spent outside would re¬ 
sult in the loss of say 20 per cent of 
the manure — a loss worth thinking 
about. Perhaps most people will smile 
at this for being as the Scotch say 
“near,” but I am not ashamed of the 
argument. 
There is yet a third item. The cow 
is a creature of routine 
and probably, I say 
probably,” but am open to conviction, 
will give more milk standing in a stall 
by the month than she will if given the 
freedom of the yard for part of the 
day. So much in favor of continuous 
stabling. The foregoing statements it 
seems to me are of the type that do 
not admit of much debate or questioning. 
Now when we come to the other side 
of the question we have no well-proven 
ground to stand on. We do a good deal 
of continuous stabling on Hillside 
Farm, but I admit that I am not in my 
own mind well satisfied that it is the 
proper thing to do. I am afraid it is 
mainly a concession to convenience. 
Dairying is a long time business and we 
must look beyond this month or this 
year. We cannot be sure what will be 
the ultimate effect upon the health and 
vigor of the herd. 
Now I am not worrying over T B, 
despite the fact that we once lost 38 
head in one test. No amount of close 
confinement can give a cow T B unless 
the germ is somehow introduced and if 
we are so unfortunate as to get a bad 
spreader, no amount of. outdoor air or 
exercise will insure against future dis¬ 
aster. In any case, in the long run 
T B is much less serious and much 
easier to control than abortion and 
barrenness. 
Now the business of dairying is mak¬ 
ing progress. We are on the whole very 
much better dairymen than our grand¬ 
fathers were. We have better cows to 
begin with and we feed more wisely 
and liberally. The average milk produc¬ 
tion of the cows of the country attests 
these facts. On the other hand I am 
very much afraid that we do have 
more trouble—especially along the line 
of abortion and 
failure to breed 
than was the case 
a generation or 
two ago. In part 
this may be a mis¬ 
taken idea, result¬ 
ing from the 
tendency to mag¬ 
nify present ills 
and to forget old 
time disasters. 
Part of it may 
result from the 
fact that we have 
far more traffic in 
cattle and. hence 
a wider dissemi¬ 
nation of infec¬ 
tious diseases. Some of it may result 
from feeding so liberal that it becomes 
crowding or forcing, but may it not 
also be true that we need at least a 
partial return to methods now con¬ 
sidered as primitive and outgrown? 
You see I am not dogmatic or cocksure. 
I am only putting into words some 
of the doubts and questions that are 
running in my head. Is it sound to 
put a cow in stanchion from November 
until May and never let her loose? 
In any case the dairy cow is about 
the only animal which we treat that 
way. , I think the most important as¬ 
pect of the case is the effect upon 
reproduction. I begin to believe that 
the calves of some of the cdfcvs have 
less pep and vigor when dropped than 
we would like to see. 
In fowls, every egg is the physiologi¬ 
cal equivalent of a birth and poultry- 
men are agreed that there can be no 
satisfactory egg production unless the 
flock is kept active — we might almost 
say “made” to exercise. To keep a 
brood sow idle in a close pen is simply 
to invite disaster at farrowing time. 
The lustiest colt is dropped by the mare 
that has pulled the plow and harrow all 
spring. We go to a good deal of 
trouble and inconvenience to give the 
dairy bull exercise, and without it 
his usefulness often ceases in what is 
practically early life. Even the pros¬ 
pective human mother is exhorted to 
keep active either by doing the family 
washing or playing golf, the prescrip¬ 
tion varying according to her “social 
position,” but we seem to be in danger 
of forgetting all these lessons when it 
comes to the matrons of the dairy herd. 
Physiologically at least the weight 
of evidence is against continuous 
stabling. 
E 
VERY year an in- By J. VAN WAGENEN, JR. 
creasing number of 
J. VAN WAGENEN, JR. 
ROOM FOR ARGUMENT 
AS Mr. Van Wagenen points out in 
■**-his article on this page, there is 
chance for a good deal of disagreement 
and argument on the particular ques¬ 
tion he raises in the care of dairy cows. 
Comparatively little has been written 
or said about this important subject 
and, therefore, we will he glad to have 
your opinion in a short letter written 
from your actual observations and ex¬ 
perience.—The Editors. 
