FACTS REFUTE PREJUDICE.
BY D. B. CHAPMAN, NEW LONDON, CT.
When I was a boy it was the prevailing opinion in the section of country where I was raised, that it was better that a cow should be rather thin in flesh at the time of calving than otherwise. There was but very little grain fed in winter, to any stock in that section, except to working oxen. Cows in milk were fed hay, while dry cows, and young stock, were fed on straw or corn stalks. The result was that at the time of calving, cows were generally thin enough to conform to the popular idea of a proper condition. Cows giving a large yield of milk were scarce enough in those days, and it was very seldom that you would meet one that would yield ten quarts of milk per day (beer measure), during the flush of feed. My faith in the theory, that a cow should be thin in flesh at the time of calving, received a very severe shock, very soon after I became the owner of one, and experience and observation have only served to confirm my doubts of its correctness.
In the spring of 1848, I purchased my first cow. I came across her some twenty miles from home. She had just calved, and displayed a very large udder. Her owner warranted her to give twelve quarts of milk per day, and to be, in every respect, a good family cow. The cow suited my fancy in every particular, save one, she was too fat. But having nine points in her favor, I did not feel disposed to forego her purchase for the want of the tenth. When I drove her home, the adverse criticism on her was immense, solely on account of her condition. Said an old farmer to me: “That is a fancy cow, just suited for some rich man, who can afford to indulge his fancy, and expend for her keeping, twice as much as the value of her milk. You will find that you have got to keep her in just the condition that she is now in, or you will get no milk. If you do not keep her in this condition, you will find she will shrink in milk, before she shrinks in flesh, and she won’t give half as much, on the same keeping, as she would if she was no fatter than my cows.”
I must own, that after listening to this and that criticism in the same strain, I felt a little sick of my bargain, and would have willingly sold her at a discount, but no purchaser appearing, I concluded to make the best of a bad bargain.
My purchase was made April second. Twelve hundred pounds of hay furnished her with feed until the eighteenth of May. I then hired a pasture, for fifteen dollars, where I kept her until November, when I sold her.
I found that, although the cow lost flesh under my keeping, and a good deal of it too, she gave quite as much milk as she was recommended to give, and at the time she was sold, her account stood as follows, no account having been made of the milk used in the family, then consisting of three persons:
| Cr. | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| By sale of | Milk, at 6 cents per quart | $74.20 | |
| do. | Calf | 5.00 | |
| do. | Cow, November 1 | 18.00 | |
| $97.20 | |||
| Dr. | |||
| To purchase, | April 2d | $35.00 | |
| do. | Hay | 12.00 | |
| do. | Service | 0.50 | |
| do. | Pasture | 15.00 | |
| $62.50 | |||
| Net Profit | $34.70 | ||
I was so well pleased with this result, notwithstanding the unfavorable circumstance of having started with a fat cow, that the next spring I repurchased her at the same price paid the spring previous. But instead of a fat cow then, she was thin enough to afford a good study of animal anatomy. She had had no other feed than corn stalks, for the two months that she had been dry, and was as much thinner than when I sold her; as she was at that time thinner than when I first bought her. In fact, she had been subjected to a gradual system of depletion for a year.
I sold her on the first of October, following, when her account stood as follows, no account having been made of the milk used in the family, numbering three persons, as before:
| Dr. | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| To | purchase | $35.00 | |
| Hay | 12.00 | ||
| Service | 0.50 | ||
| Meal | 6.00 | ||
| Pasture, the same as the previous year | 15.00 | ||
| $68.50 | |||
| Cr. | |||
| By sale of | Milk, at 6 cents per quart | $51.30 | |
| do. | Calf, two weeks old | 3.00 | |
| do. | Cow, October 1 | 12.00 | |
| $66.30 | |||
| Loss | $2.20 | ||
This difference in profit was occasioned solely by the difference of the yield of her milk in the two seasons. The yield for the second season averaged full three quarts per day less than the first, and, at the same time, the quality of the milk was deteriorated in the same proportion as the quantity.
This was my first lesson, acquired by experience. At the same time, I learned another by observation. The two combined added materially to my stock of knowledge.
A neighbor of mine, a German, in the month of January, 1849, purchased a heifer, three years of age the coming spring. She had been kept poor from the time she was weaned. At two years of age she had dropped her first calf, and through her first season of milk had given but little promise as a milker. She had just been dried when he purchased her, and he, without any previous knowledge of the care of cows, commenced feeding her according to his instincts. He fed her six quarts of meal per day, in addition to all the hay she would eat. This system of feeding continued until about the twenty-fifth of March, when she calved. At the time of calving she was in better condition than much of the beef sold in our markets.
About the same time that his cow calved I repurchased mine. The feed of the two, thereafter, was very nearly alike, except that his cow had a feed of six quarts of meal per day, while mine had only two. His fat cow doubled on the quantity of milk that she had given the year before, when she came in poor, while my poor cow, with extra feed, fell short more than a third of her yield of the year before, when she came in, in good condition.
At that time I do not remember to have ever seen a work on chemistry, and knew nothing of its application; but the knowledge acquired, led to the formation of a theory in my mind, on which I have since acted, and which, I believe, has a scientific basis, to wit: “The fat laid on the body of an in-calf cow, is a store from which nature draws a large portion of the material which increases and enriches the subsequent flow of milk—a store from which she, by legitimate processes, produces oleo-stearine in the shape of butter.”
Acting upon this theory, I have endeavored to apportion to my cows a uniform daily ration, occasionally varying the material, which, although it may not sustain the cow in full flesh during the greatest flow of milk, seems to renew it during the period of the lesser flow, and render them in good condition at the time of calving. This system of uniform feeding, to my mind, pays better than it does to feed heavily while in milk, and then lightly when dry, because it furnishes a large resource of fat, on which to draw at a time when to consume sufficient food to sustain the entire flow of milk capable of being produced, might imperil health; and I feel quite sure that a certain richness is thereby imparted to the milk, that no amount of feeding will draw from a poor cow. In the autumn of 1877 I purchased a grade heifer reputed to be seven-eighths Jersey and one-eighth Ayrshire. She had dropped her first calf the spring previous, when only two years old. She was then represented as yielding three quarts of milk per day, and due to calve April the sixth. To account for the small yield of milk, her owner said she had been kept on poor pasture and milked by careless boys, who had not been particular to milk her clean.
That she had been kept on poor pasture her appearance abundantly confirmed. She came into my possession during the root harvest, in November. I commenced by feeding to her three bushels of rutabaga tops, or of beet tops, three pounds of corn meal, together with all the dry hay she would eat each day.