The Fat of the Land: The Story of an American Farm

by John Williams Streeter

The original plan was for a soiling farm on which I could milk thirty cows, fatten two hundred hogs, feed a thousand hens, and wait for thirty-five hundred fruit trees to come to a profitable age. With this in view, I set apart forty acres of high, dry land, for the feeding-grounds, twenty acres of which was devoted to the cows; and I now found that this twenty-acre lot would provide an ample exercise field for twice that number. It was in grass (timothy, red-top, and blue grass), and the cows nibbled persistently during the short hours each day when they were permitted to be on it; but it was never reckoned as part of their ration. The sod was kept in good condition and the field free from weeds, by the use of the mowing-machine, set high, every ten or twenty days, according to the season. Following the mower, we use a spring-tooth rake which bunched the weeds and gathered or broke up the droppings; and everything the rake caught was carted to the manure vats. Our big Holsteins do not suffer from close quarters, so far as I am able to judge, neither do they take on fat. From thirty minutes to three hours (depending on the weather), is all the outing they get each day; but this seems sufficient for their needs. The well-ventilated stable with its moderate temperature suits the sedentary nature of these milk machines, and I am satisfied with the results. I cannot, of course, speak with authority of the comparative merits of soiling versus grazing, for I have had no experience in the latter; but in theory soiling appeals to me, and in practice it satisfies me.

When I found I could keep more cows on the land set apart for them, I built another cow stable for the dry cows and the heifers, and added four stalls to my milk stable by turning each of the hospital wards into two stalls.

The ten heifers which I reserved in the spring of 1896 were now nearly two years old. They were expected to "come in" in the early autumn, when they would supplement the older herd. The cows purchased in 1895 were now five years old, and quite equal to the large demand which we made upon them. They had grown to be enormous creatures, from thirteen hundred to fourteen hundred pounds in weight, and they were proving their excellence as milk producers by yielding an average of forty pounds a day. We had, and still have, one remarkable milker, who thinks nothing of yielding seventy pounds when fresh, and who doesn't fall below twenty-five pounds when we are forced to dry her off. I have no doubt that she would be a successful candidate for advanced registration if we put her to the test. For ten months in each year these cows give such quantities of milk as would surprise a man not acquainted with this noble Dutch family. My five common cows were good of their kind, but they were not in the class with the Holsteins. They were not "robber" cows, for they fully earned their food; but there was no great profit in them. To be sure, they did not eat more than two-thirds as much as the Holsteins; but that fact did not stand to their credit, for the basic principle of factory farming is to consume as much raw material as possible and to turn out its equivalent in finished product. The common cows consumed only two-thirds as much raw material as the Holsteins, and turned out rather less than two-thirds of their product, while they occupied an equal amount of floor space; consequently they had to give place to more competent machines. They were to be sold during the season.

Why dairymen can be found who will pay $50 apiece for cows like those I had for sale (better, indeed, than the average), is beyond my method of reckoning values. Twice $50 will buy a young cow bred for milk, and she would prove both bread and milk to the purchaser in most cases. The question of food should settle itself for the dairyman as it does for the factory farmer. The more food consumed, the better for each, if the ratio of milk be the same.

My Holsteins are great feeders; more than 2 tons of grain, 2-1/2 tons of hay, and 4 or 5 tons of corn fodder, in addition to a ton of roots or succulent vegetables, pass through their great mouths each year. The hay is nearly equally divided between timothy, oat hay, and alfalfa; and when I began to figure the gross amount that would be required for my 50 Holstein gourmands, I saw that the widow's farm had been purchased none too quickly. To provide 100 tons of grain, 125 tons of hay, and 200 or 300 tons of corn fodder for the cows alone, was no slight matter; but I felt prepared to furnish this amount of raw material to be transmuted into golden butter. The Four Oaks butter had made a good reputation, and the four oak leaves stamped on each mould was a sufficient guarantee of excellence. My city grocer urged a larger product, and I felt safe in promising it; at the same time, I held him up for a slight advance in price. Heretofore it had netted me 32 cents a pound, but from January 1, 1898, I was to have 33-1/3 cents for each pound delivered at the station at Exeter, I agreeing to furnish at least 50 pounds a day, six days in a week.

This was not always easily done during the first eight months of that year, and I will confess to buying 640 pounds to eke out the supply for the colony; but after the young heifers came in, there was no trouble, and the purchased butter was more than made up to our local grocer.

It will be more satisfactory to deal with dairy matters in lump sums from now on. The contract with the city grocer still holds, and, though he often urges me to increase my herd, I still limit the supply to 300 pounds a week,—sometimes a little more, but rarely less. I believe that 38 to 44 cows in full flow of milk will make the best balance in my factory; and a well-balanced factory is what I am after.

I am told that animals are not machines, and that they cannot be run as such. My animals are; and I run them as I would a shop. There is no sentiment in my management. If a cow or a hog or a hen doesn't work in a satisfactory way, it ceases to occupy space in my shop, just as would an imperfect wheel. The utmost kindness is shown to all animals at Four Oaks. This rule is the most imperative one on the place, and the one in which no "extenuating circumstances" are taken into account. There are two equal reasons for this: the first is a deep-rooted aversion to cruelty in all forms; and the second is, it pays. But kindness to animals doesn't imply the necessity of keeping useless ones or those whose usefulness is below one's standard. If a man will use the intelligence and attention to detail in the management of stock that is necessary to the successful running of a complicated machine, he will find that his stock doesn't differ greatly from his machine. The trouble with most farmers is that they think the living machine can be neglected with impunity, because it will not immediately destroy itself or others, and because it is capable of a certain amount of self-maintenance; while the dead machine has no power of self-support, and must receive careful and punctual attention to prevent injury to itself and to other property. If a dairyman will feed his cows as a thresher feeds the cylinder of his threshing-machine, he will find that the milk will flow from the one about as steadily as the grain falls from the other.

Intensive factory farming means the use of the best machines pushed to the limit of their capacity through the period of their greatest usefulness, and then replaced by others. Pushing to the limit of capacity is in no sense cruelty. It is predicated on the perfect health of the animal, for without perfect condition, neither machine nor animal can do its best work. It is simply encouraging to a high degree the special function for which generations of careful breeding have fitted the animal.

That there is gratification in giving milk, no well-bred cow or mother will deny. It is a joyous function to eat large quantities of pleasant food and turn it into milk. Heredity impels the cow to do this, and it would take generations of wild life to wean her from it. As well say that the cataleptic trance of the pointer, when the game bird lies close and the delicate scent fills his nostrils, is not a joy to him, or that the Dalmatian at the heels of his horse, or the foxhound when Reynard's trail is warm, receive no pleasure from their specialties.