Fig. 16.—SWISS COW “GENEVA.”
The spring time of the first year must be tided over with hay until the clover is large enough for soiling. Green clover is then fed to the cow until the oats are sufficiently advanced. The oats are then used as long as they are fit for the purpose, cutting them a second time as far as practicable, and the residue, if any, is cured for hay before it gets too ripe for that purpose. The same course is pursued with the rye in the following years. The clover should be cut for hay rather early, in order to get it in the best possible condition, and to insure a good second, and perhaps a third crop. All the aftermath not used in soiling, should be converted into hay. When the oats are exhausted, clover is fed until the corn fodder is large enough for use. This is fed until the ears make their appearance, and what is then left is cut and cured for dry fodder during winter. After the green corn fodder is all consumed, there will be a growth of new clover in the oats stubble the first year, and in the rye stubble in after years, with which the cow is soiled until the artichokes are ready to feed, and if any of the new clover is left by that time, it is made into hay. The artichokes are fed raw; in winter, with hay and other dry fodder, and as long as they last in spring.
In the second year soiling begins with rye, and continues afterwards through the season the same as the first year, and a like course is followed in succeeding years.
FEEDING ARTICHOKES.
The artichokes will grow until frost kills the stalks, and a patch of one-quarter of an acre, when the soil is in good condition, will yield a yearly average of between two hundred and fifty and three hundred bushels of them. They can be fed before they are quite ripe, in which case the cow will eat up the whole plant—root, stalk, and branch. She must not have access to a heap of the tubers, lest she surfeit and seriously injure herself. As long as the whole plant is fed, she should not be allowed more at a time than she will eat up clean, for if she gets more she will eat the tubers, and refuse the stalks. In fact she will prefer these tubers at all times to any other food. She should therefore receive a certain allowance, say a peck or a little more, three times a day, so that she will eat up the stalks, and also a small portion of other forage with them. In winter and spring she will consume a bushel or more of the raw tubers a day, together with eight or ten pounds of hay or other dry food. Her ration of artichokes should never be so large that she will reject other food.
Artichokes can be fed for about eight months of the year, say from the first of October to the first of June, during which time the cow will consume two hundred and forty bushels, or more, of them. These, with the hay and other dry fodder, will keep her in excellent condition, and produce an abundance of good milk without additional food. One ton of hay or other dry fodder, in connection with the artichokes, will last during the said eight months, affording the cow eight or nine pounds a day. Three quarters of a ton may suffice, but she should not have less than this. If the crop of hay and other dry fodder exceeds a ton, it may all be fed during the first year, or a part of it may be kept over for the ensuing year. In stowing away the hay, ten or twelve quarts of salt should be scattered through a ton of it, to impart a relish. In addition to this, the cow should receive two or three ounces of salt daily, and plenty of pure fresh water.