COW KEPT ON HALF AN ACRE.
If the season is favorable, we manage to keep our one cow nicely on half an acre, or rather on the fodder grown on half an acre. But sometimes, on account of drouth or late frost, we are obliged to buy a little hay in the spring.
It is impossible for us to say how much feed must be bought. We generally have a bag of corn (two bushels), and a bag of oats (two and a half bushels), ground together, feeding from two to four quarts a day, according to the amount of roots used, and the season of the year, feeding meal very sparingly in summer. We frequently reserve two or three rods in the spring for early turnips, to be fed when large enough for profit, but always feed turnips immediately after milking to prevent flavoring the milk. We generally have a few cabbage plants started to set where the corn misses, or the beets or turnips fail to come up, or in any corner or by-place where there is room for a cabbage to grow. Sometimes we reserve a few rods for cabbages late in the season, as we find them excellent for a change of feed either winter or summer. We advise, in all cases, the use of the earliest varieties of grass, grain, or vegetables, as we cannot afford the time and ground occupied by some of the larger and taller growing varieties, being convinced, from actual experience, that two and three crops of early varieties, although small, are more profitable than one crop of the larger late varieties.