On the eighteenth of May, her bag began to swell, and became feverish. A quart or two of watery milk was drawn at intervals of eight hours for the next three days, and the udder was bathed as often in tepid water, and gently but thoroughly rubbed with goose oil, in which camphor-gum had been dissolved. Each day, also, she was given a quarter of a pound of Epsom Salts, dissolved in a quart of “tea” made from poke-weed root (Phytolacca decandra), which all druggists now keep in store; this was administered as a “drench,” from a bottle, her head being held up while she swallowed it. On the morning of the twenty-second, being two days overdue, she calved, having a hard time, but producing without help a fine large heifer. Very soon after, I gave her a bucket of cool (not cold) water, in which was stirred a quart of wheat bran, a half pound of linseed-meal, previously scalded, and a handful of pulverized poke or garget root. This mess was repeated at noon, and the bag milked dry. A little later, the after-birth naturally passed off and was removed. The udder remained hot, knotty, and so tender that when the calf sucked I had to protect it from the mother’s kicks, and also to prevent it from taking one teat which was extremely sore. From this quarter I carefully drew the milk with one of a set of four “milking-tubes,” which I bought two years ago to do my milking, but soon discarded; here they came in use, just the thing wanted, but one as good as four. At night I milked dry, gave a dose of half a pound of Salts, with one ounce of Nitre, and a warm Bran-mash. The bag was well rubbed as before. The cow ate some hay during the night, and a few cabbage sprouts in the morning. That day (twenty-third), she was on the pasture a little while, and had a full bag of milk, but still hot and tender. The calf was separated from the cow at daylight, and allowed to suck four times during the day, the bag being milked dry, and then oiled and well rubbed every time. The bowels appearing to be in a sufficiently active state, appetite improving, and her eyes natural, the physic was discontinued, the cow allowed to eat grass and hay at will, and for several days the calf sucked at daylight, noon, and dark, the milk left by it being all drawn. The bag was rubbed and anointed two or three times a day, and a little extract of Belladonna added to the oil used. Under this treatment the inflammation gradually subsided. As soon as the cow would allow her calf to take the tenderest teat, I kept it on that side as much as possible while sucking. At the end of a week after calving, the udder was again in sound condition. The calf was kept until the first of June, and then the owner of its sire took it in full for service of bull three seasons. We then began to get the full flow of milk, and the pasture being good, it was a fine mess daily. At that time, I began to measure the milk, and have done so ever since. “June” gave four hundred and eighty-two quarts the month she was five years old, an average of sixteen quarts a day.
Until the last of July, the cow got all her food from the pasture, and one acre would have done as well as one and a quarter. For the next five or six weeks, the grass was hardly sufficient; it was, for this period, based upon the experience of August, 1876, that the corn had been provided. The ten rods of Mammoth Sweet, three hundred and fifty to four hundred hills, had been put in at five different plantings, a week apart, and the earliest was just forming ears the last of July when I began using it, at first once a day, then twice. For each feed, the whole plants of three or four hills were taken, and chopped in a straw-cutter, ears and all, into two-inch lengths. This was eaten with great relish, and during August the cow spent most of the daytime standing in the stream where shaded by trees and grazed at night. The pasturage improved again before the corn gave out, so quite a nice piece of winter fodder was saved from the piece. Then all through September there was every day more or less of green-corn husks, carrot and beet tops, other vegetable and fruit trimmings, clean refuse from house and garden, good food for the cow, so that again one acre of pasture would have sufficed. During October, the carrots and mangolds were harvested, and their tops gave the cow more than she could manage. I also began feeding turnips the last of October, a few with mangel tops at first, increasing until she ate more than half a bushel a day, tops and all. Before the ground froze, the turnips were piled in the barn, without trimming, and covered with hay; were kept safely until the last were fed, November twenty-eighth. The problem of winter feeding really came up the first of November. I had a large supply of roots on hand of my own raising, and the hay and grain to buy. So I went to the books, and after studying both practice and science, decided upon the following daily rations for the next six months: November first to May first, fifteen pounds of meadow rowen and clover hay, in about equal parts; one pound each of coarse wheat bran and corn-meal, mixed. During November, one-half bushel turnips and two pounds cotton-seed meal; December and January, one-half bushel carrots and one and one-half pound cotton-seed meal; February and March, one-half bushel (or more) of mangels and one pound cotton-seed meal; April, one-half bushel parsnips and one and one-half pounds cotton-seed meal; also, one hundred pounds additional hay, and my corn-stalks, for February and March.
This plan has been carried out with little variation. Of course the food has not been accurately weighed daily. The grain portions, kept in barrels, have been dipped out with tin cups, but have held out just about as expected; the quantity of hay and roots has been guessed at.
THE METHOD OF FEEDING
and other work at the stable during the winter has been this: Between six and seven o’clock A. M. stall cleaned, cow brushed off, bedding and absorbents fixed, the milking done, and then a feed of six or seven pounds of chaffed hay, slightly moistened, and the bran and meal mixed with it. After this, a bucket of water left in the stall, except in the coldest weather. The bucket is fixed near the feed-box, so it can not be tipped over, and it has generally been found empty at noon. At that hour, the regular watering, two or three pailfuls, and then a small bunch of hay thrown in the box; the stall cleaned also. Between six and seven at night, the milking done and bedding fixed, the roots fed, chopped up pretty fine with a spade, and the cotton-seed meal sprinkled over them. Hay then given, and the cow left for the night.
It was my intention to feed the roots in two parts, morning and night, and I should have preferred this, but my time in the morning was limited. Preparing the roots over night, they sometimes froze, but I could cut the hay at evening, ready for the morning chop-feed. As one kind of root was about to give out, some of the next to be fed were mixed in, and thus sudden changes avoided. The extra hay and stalks calculated for February and March were not used exactly in those months, but consumed during severely cold and windy spells, being added to the usual noon and night portions. At all times, the cow had, under this plan, full as much as she was ready to eat up clean. The hay left on hand a year ago was all used last summer, and before November a full load each of the best rowen and clover hay were put into the barn, one thousand six hundred and one thousand four hundred pounds respectively, and there is a little left.
It ought also to be mentioned that while the cow was mainly fed on sweet corn, last July and August, I was obliged to add about two pounds of cotton-seed meal a day, to give quality to the milk; it was fed dry, at noon. As soon as the feeding of carrot tops began, this meal was omitted, but it was again needed when turnips were substituted for carrot and beet tops. The ration of mangolds was increased to about two bushels in three days, because there were plenty of them, and my house cellar being rather warm, they commenced to rot. I was very careful to give the cow only sound roots. This extra food in February and March resulted in a better milk record by “June” than in the two months next preceding. I shall feed more roots the coming year. There were more parsnips than could be well used; they were not needed until April, and I sold five dollars’ worth, as an offset to what the cow got from last year’s kitchen garden. The cow goes on to pasture to-day.
Therefore, in review, the cow has been carried through the year with the one and one-half acres rented for thirty dollars, and forty-five dollars expended for hay and grain. Against the manure taken for my garden may be placed the cleanings of the poultry house, the contents of the earth-closet, and the garden refuse and bedding, all of which go into the compost heap. The item of labor alone remains, and as all that has been hired (including the plowing of the garden) was paid from sales of surplus roots, no further account is taken of that; my own time was well spent, as the balance sheet shows. Last August, we fully determined that it would be better for the family cow to be fresh in September than in the spring. The heat of summer is the time when it is most difficult to keep a cow properly fed for a good flow of rich milk on a little place like this. It is the time when milk is plenty and cheap, if one wants to buy, and most difficult to manage or dispose of if one has much on hand. It is almost impossible to make good butter in dog-days, living as we do, with no special appliances, and it is not worth while for us to get a patent creamer and a supply of ice. In the spring, we don’t want a dry cow, but are willing to have one in August. July, with its increasing heat and decreasing pasturage, is a favorable time to dry off a cow. The keeper of one cow can not afford to have her dry more than six weeks in the year, and may manage to have this period four weeks, or even less. Accordingly, I have arranged for “June” to come in next September, and shall in future practice “winter-dairying.” Indeed, we have done so the past season, for with liberal feeding of a succulent character, the cow has held out well in her milk. She is now giving between five and six quarts a day, while not yet on grass, and her total yield for eleven months, since June first (or rather for the year), is found to be two thousand seven hundred and forty-six quarts. Here is my third year’s annual account with “June:”
| Expenses. | ||
|---|---|---|
| Interest at 7 per cent. on cost of cow | $ 4.55 | |
| Rent of 1½ acres of land | 30.00 | |
| Hay left from last year | 2.00 | |
| 1½ tons of Hay bought | 28.50 | |
| 350 lbs. of Cotton-seed Meal and freight | 6.80 | |
| 159 lbs. Corn-Meal | 1.50 | |
| 200 lbs. Bran @ $1.15 per cwt | 2.30 | |
| Year’s expense | $75.65 | |
| Returns. | ||
| 685 qts. Milk sold at 6c. | $41.10 | |
| 464 qts. Skim-milk sold at 2½c. | 11.60 | |
| Sales | $52.70 | |
| 670 qts. Milk used @ 6c. | 40.20 | |
| 127 lbs. Butter made @ 30c. | 38.10 | |
| Year’s return | $131.00 | |
| Memorandum—Cost keeping | $75.65 | |
| Less sales | 52.70 | |
| $22.95 | ||
| Plus purchases— | ||
| 55 qts. Milk @ 6c. | 3.30 | |
| 53 lbs. Butter @ 30c. | 15.90 | |
| Cow products cost family | $42.15 | |
An absolute profit of fifty-five dollars from the cow is shown, and a still larger saving in family expenses, besides nine hundred quarts of skim-milk and butter-milk used in the house and poultry-yard and given away. The yield of the cow shows “June” to be a superior animal, and that is what the keeper of one cow should have, for it costs little more in food and care than an ordinary one. But if the cow had been only of medium quality and no new milk could be sold, it would have been a profitable operation. And if, instead of selling new milk, as much butter had been made as possible, there would still have resulted a balance of over twenty dollars in favor of the cow.