Altogether, in spite of unfavorable conditions there is no occasion to complain of the result of the year.
May 1st, 1877.—Last spring, my neighbor, north, was willing to let me have his acre and a half of meadow for pasturage, but wanted thirty-five dollars for the season. I would not pay that, and, instead, hired a place for “June” in a large pasture half a mile or more distant, paying twenty dollars for the season, May fifteenth, to October fifteenth, and four dollars to a boy for driving. On the ninth of May, the cow dropped a bull calf without difficulty, and I gave it away the next day. No special care was needed or given, except a little caution as to feeding, and on the fifteenth the cow went to pasture. She did remarkably well until early in July, being in pasture during the day, and at the stable at night. Then the weather grew very hot, the pasture dry, and “June” began to fail rapidly in her milk; so I commenced feeding a little bran, and offered hay when she came up at night. Later, a friend recommended cotton-seed meal, and a hundred weight of that was obtained and fed with good results, two or three pounds a day. August was a month of intense dry heat, and the pasture became of little use except for the exercise, shade, and water. In spite of meal and hay fed at night, “June’s” yield of milk shrank to three quarts a day, and we feared she would go dry. August fifth, I made the change of sending her to pasture just before six o’clock in the evening, as the boy went after the other cows, and bringing her up to the stable in the morning, where I kept her during the day. This was an improvement, and also gave better opportunity of feeding sweet corn stalks, vegetable trimmings and the like, fresh from the garden. The grain was continued through August, and she ate more or less hay. At the end of the month she was giving over a gallon of milk a day. Rains came early in September, the pasturage soon became good again, and the daily mess of milk steadily increased until November. By that time she was in the stable for the winter, and the treatment since has been practically a repetition of last year. My root patch in the garden was enlarged, as the result of last year’s experience, and accordingly I put eight or ten bushels of carrots into my cellar in October, covering them with sand, and left a fine lot of parsnips in the ground. I began feeding the carrots in January, two or three a day, just for a relish; gradually increased them, until in February the cow received half a peck or more, and thus they lasted into March. Then I dried her off, getting the last milk to use March twenty-eighth. Grain feeding was stopped the first of March, and she has had none since. After the cow was fully dry, I began on the parsnips, and she is now getting half a peck daily, with all the hay she will eat. “June” will be fresh again on the twentieth of this month.
The season has not satisfied me. Not only has the weather been unfavorable, (we must expect severe summers occasionally,) but I don’t like sending the cow to a distant pasture which I can know very little about, and where nobody knows how the other animals treat her. I shall never do this again if any other arrangement can be made.
The account for the year is as follows:
| Expenses. | ||
|---|---|---|
| Interest at 7 per cent. on cost of cow | $4.55 | |
| Hay from last year | 3.00 | |
| 2½ tons Timothy Hay @ $18 | 45.00 | |
| Pasturage and driving | 24.00 | |
| 750 lbs. Wheat Bran @ $1.10 | 8.25 | |
| 450 lbs. Corn-Meal @ $1 | 4.50 | |
| 100 lbs. Cotton-seed Meal | 2.00 | |
| Expended | $91.30 | |
| Less hay on hand | 2.00 | |
| Year’s expense | $89.30 | |
| Returns. | ||
| 42 qts Milk sold at 6½c. | $2.73 | |
| 286 qts. Skim-milk sold at 3c. | 8.58 | |
| Sales | $11.31 | |
| 640 qts. Milk for family, at 6½c. | 41.60 | |
| 109 lbs. Butter made @ 32c. | 34.88 | |
| Year’s returns | $87.79 | |
| Memorandum—Cost | $89.30 | |
| Less sales | 11.31 | |
| 77.99 | ||
| Plus purchases— | ||
| 86 qts. Milk @ 6½c. | $ 5.59 | |
| 70 lbs. Butter @ 30c. | 21.00 | |
| Cow products cost family | $104.58 | |
Comparing this with last year’s statement, it will be seen that although there is a small balance against the cow, she is still, all things considered, a profitable part of the domestic establishment.
May 1st, 1878.—Dissatisfied with the last year’s management, and seeing that there would last spring be a large surplus of fine compost on hand, more profitable to use than to sell, I planned a new arrangement in the autumn of 1876 for keeping my one cow. First, I secured the meadow west of my lot, renting it from the owner from October first, 1876, until April first, this year, for thirty dollars. The acre and a half yielded about two tons of hay in 1876, but no rowen; the aftermath was good, however, when I came in possession. The south end of it, although in good heart, was weedy and uneven. I drove some strong stakes, and ran a wire fence across, in continuation of my southern boundary, thus cutting off just about a quarter of an acre in rear of my neighbor, south. This piece I dressed with compost made the summer just preceding, and had it plowed and cross-plowed before the ground froze, in preparation for a root crop. The soil is a deep, mellow, sandy loam, but rich. Last spring the new root patch was plowed once, well dressed from the compost pile of 1875-6, and that harrowed in. (There was enough of the same compost for my garden, and to spare, so last June there was still on hand the manure of about a year’s collection put up in good shape.) The rest of the work I was able to do myself. My root-garden, laid out in rows running north and south, was divided as follows: eight square rods of parsnips next to neighbor, south, on the slope, where they caught the wash from his garden; twelve square rods of carrots and ten rods of mangolds; in the point west to the stream I put sweet corn at first, and followed it with strap-leafed turnips, ten square rods. Without going into the details of root-culture, which any one who has made a good garden knows all about, I put into my house cellar last fall fifty-two bushels of Long Orange Carrots, and over forty bushels of Long Yellow Mangel Wurzels (these monstrous, twisted, forked roots are awkward things to measure, but there must have been a ton or more in weight), left in the ground from twenty to twenty-five bushels of Hollow-crowned Parsnips, and harvested thirty-six bushels of English Turnips. This was more than I had bargained for. I see now that roots enough might have been raised in my old garden, and the parsnips would have done much better there, but I sold twenty bushels each of carrots and turnips for more than enough to cover all expenditures for seed and hired labor.
A year ago to-day, I turned “June” into her new pasture of an acre and a quarter; the grass was then starting well, and I preferred to have the change gradual. She ate more or less hay until the end of the month. Doors and gates were so fixed that she could be in stall, yard, or pasture at pleasure, and could drink at the stream bordering the meadow.