Milch Cows and Dairy Farming / Comprising the Breeds, Breeding, and Management, in Health and Disease, of Dairy and Other Stock, the Selection of Milch Cows, with a Full Explanation of Guenon's Method; The Culture of Forage Plants, and the Production of Milk, Butter, and Cheese: Embodying the Most Recent Improvements, and Adapted to Farming in the United States and British Provinces. With a Treatise upon the Dairy Husbandry of Holland; To Which Is Added Horsfall's System of Dairy Management

by Charles Louis Flint

Chinese Sugar-Cane

The Chinese Sugar-Cane also may deserve attention as a fodder plant. Experiments hitherto made seem to show that when properly cultivated, and cut at the right time, it is a palatable and nutritious plant, while many of the failures have been the result of too early cutting. For a fodder crop the drill culture is preferable, both on account of the larger yield obtained and to prevent it from becoming too hard and stalky.

The Potato (Solanum tuberosum)

is the first of the root crops to be mentioned. This produces a large quantity of milk, though the quality is inferior. The market value of this root is, at the present time, too great to allow of feeding extensively with it, even in milk-dairies, where it is most valuable as food for cows; still, there are locations where it may be judicious to cultivate this root for dairy feed, and in all circumstances there is a certain portion of the crop of unmarketable size, which will be of value fed to milch cows or swine. It should be planted in April or May, but in many sections in June, on good mellow soil, first thoroughly ploughed and harrowed, then furrowed three feet apart, and manured in the furrows with a mixture of ashes, plaster of Paris, and salt. The seed may be dropped in the furrows, one foot apart, after the drill system, or in hills, two and a half or three feet apart, to be covered with the plough by simply turning the furrows back, after which the whole should be rolled with the field roller, where it can be done.

If the land is not already in good heart from continued cultivation, a few loads of barn-yard manure may be spread, and ploughed under by the first ploughing. Used in this way, it is far less liable to cause the rot than when put in the hill. If a sufficient quantity of wood-ashes is not at hand, sifted coal-ashes will answer the purpose, and are said to be valuable as a preventive of the rot. In this way one man, two boys, and a horse, can plant from three to four acres a day on mellow land. I have planted two acres a day on the sod, the manure being first spread on the grass, a furrow made by a yoke of oxen and one man, another following after and dropping, a foot apart, along the outer edge of the furrow on the grass. By quick work, one hand can nearly keep up with the plough in dropping. When arrived at the end of the piece, a back furrow is turned up to the potatoes, and a good ploughman will cover nearly all without difficulty. On the return-furrow the man or boy who dropped follows after, covering up any that may be left or displaced, and smoothing off the top of the back-furrows where necessary. Potatoes thus planted came out as fine as I ever saw any.

The cost of cultivation in this mode, it must be evident, is but trifling compared with the slower method of hand-planting. The plan will require a skilful ploughman, a quick, active lad, and a good yoke of oxen, and the extent of the work will depend somewhat on the state of the turf. The nutritive equivalent in potatoes for one hundred pounds of good hay is 3.19 pounds; that is, it will take 319 pounds of potatoes to afford the same amount of nourishment as one pound of hay. The great value of roots is as a change or condiment, calculated to keep the animal in a healthy condition.

The Carrot (Daucus carota)

is somewhat extensively fed, and is a valuable root for milch cows. This, like the potato, has been cultivated and improved from a wild plant. Carrots require a deep, warm, mellow soil, thoroughly cultivated, but clean and free from weed-seed. The difference between a very good profit and a loss on the crop depends much on the use of land and manures perfectly free from foul seeds of any kind. Ashes, guano, sea-weed, ground bone, and other similar substances, or thoroughly-rotted and fermented compost, will answer the purpose.

After ploughing deep, and harrowing carefully, the seed should be sown with a seed-sower, in drills about eighteen inches apart, at the rate of four pounds to the acre, about the middle or twentieth of May. The difference between sowing the fifteenth of May and the tenth of June in New England is said to be nearly one third in the crop on an average of years. In weeding, a little wheel-hoe is invaluable, as with it a large part of the labor of cultivation is saved. A skilful hand can run this hoe within half an inch of the young plants without injury, and go over a large space in the course of a day, if the land was properly prepared in the first place.

The American farmer should always plan to economize labor. That is the great item of expense on the farm. I do not mean that he should try to shirk or avoid work, but that he should make the least amount of work accomplish the largest and most profitable results. Labor-saving machinery on the farm is applied not to reduce the number of hours’ labor, or to make the owner a man of leisure,—who is, generally, the unhappiest man in the world,—but to enable him to accomplish the greatest results in the same time that he would be compelled to labor to obtain smaller ones.

Carrots will continue to grow and increase in size late into the fall. When ready to dig, plough around as near to the outside rows as possible, turning the furrow away from the row. Then take out the carrots, pulling off the tops, and throw the carrots and tops into separate heaps on the ploughed furrows. In this way a man and two boys can harvest and put into the cellar over a hundred bushels a day.

Turnip (Brassica rapa)

The Turnip (Brassica rapa) and the Swedish turnip or ruta baga (Brassica campestris) are also largely cultivated as a field crop to feed to stock; and for this purpose numberless varieties are used, furnishing a great amount of succulent and nutritious food, late into winter, and, if well kept, late into spring. The chief objection to the turnip is that it taints the milk. This may be remedied, to a considerable extent, if not wholly, by the use of salt, or salt hay, and by feeding at the time of milking, or immediately after, or by steaming before feeding, or putting a small quantity of the solution of nitre into the pail, and milking upon it.

Turnips may be sown any time in June, in rich land, well mellowed by cultivation. Very large crops are often obtained sown as late as the middle of July, or first of August, on an inverted sod. The Michigan or double-mould-board plough leaves the land light, and in admirable condition to harrow, and drill in turnips. A successful root-grower last year cut two tons of hay to the acre, on the 23d of June, and after it was removed from the land spread eight cords of rotten kelp to the acre, and ploughed in; after which about three cords of fine old compost manure were used to the acre, which was sown, with ruta baga seed, in drills, three feet apart, plants thinned to eight or ten inches in the drill. No after cultivation was required. On the 15th of November he harvested three hundred and seventy bushels of splendid roots to the acre, carefully measured off.

The nutritive equivalent of Swedish turnips as compared with good meadow hay is 676, taking hay as a standard at 100; that is, it would require 6.76 lbs. of turnips to furnish the same nutriment as one pound of good hay; but, fed in connection with other food, as hay, for instance, perhaps five pounds of turnips would be about equal to one pound of hay.

The English or round turnip is usually sown broadcast after some other crop, and large and valuable returns are often obtained. The Swede is sown in drills. Both these varieties are used for the production of milk.

The chief objection to the turnip crop is that it leaves many kinds of soil unfit for a succession of some other crops, like Indian corn, for instance. In some sections no amount of manuring appears to make corn do well after turnips or ruta bagas.