KEEPING A COW ON CAPE COD.
BY M. T. T. NICKERSON, SOUTH DENNIS, MASS.
We live in a section of country where nature has not been lavish with her gifts. Our soil is sandy and only produces paying crops by high cultivation. Farming with us comes near to being one of the lost arts. We are not tillers of the soil. Living, as we do, within sound of the Atlantic surf, as it beats its everlasting measure upon our coast, we, from associations of birth and early training, plow the Ocean for a living, the furrows frequently stretching from pole to pole, or to the opposite side of the globe. Few, very few, keep cows. A large proportion of our people do not keep any, and it is not common to find many that have more than one.
We keep a good grade Jersey, and will give our way of keeping one cow, having learned long ago, that stock of any kind paid for good care. Keeping a lot of cattle or hogs, or poultry, and simply feeding what we happen to have, or what we can buy cheap, leaving them to shift for themselves in cold and stormy weather, or giving them wet uncomfortable stables, always results in disease to the stock and loss to the owner.
We sow as early in the spring as the ground is in condition to work, forty rods with a mixture of oats and peas, and forty rods in spring rye. We commence cutting our oats and peas as soon as the peas begin to bloom. Where we have a good stand, a rod per day, divided in three feeds, morning, noon, and night, is generally enough. As soon as we have cut about ten rods we plow under the stubble, and plant Early Minnesota Sweet Corn—rows two and one half feet apart—hills two feet in the rows, leaving two and three stalks in a hill. The next ten rods we serve in the same manner. If our rye is now grown enough to cut with profit we commence feeding it, and cut the balance of our oats and peas, and cure them for winter.
If our rye is not fit to cut for soiling, we continue to use our oats and peas until it is, and then cure for winter what is left. As soon as the last of our oats are off, we plant about four rods with beets (mangel wurzel). We prefer the Globe varieties, as the yield is better on our soil. The balance of our oat-and-pea ground we sow with Hungarian grass.
As soon as we have cut ten rods of our rye, we manage as with our oats, turn under the stubble and again plant sweet corn. The earlier the variety the better. We prefer the Early Minnesota. As soon as we have cleared off the next ten rods of our rye, we plant from two to four rods with turnips. The balance we sow with a mixture of Hungarian and the earliest “Canada Gray” pea. We now feed our rye until our first planting of corn and Hungarian will do to feed, when we turn under the rest of the rye stubble (curing what is left of the rye for winter), sow half with Hungarian and the balance we sow (not plant) with sweet corn. As soon as our first planting of corn is cut up, we sow two or three rows broadcast with flat turnips, some of the strap-leaved varieties, hoeing or raking them in by hand. We continue to plant or sow some quick-growing variety of corn, peas, grass, grain, or roots, even when it is very doubtful if we shall receive any return for our time and work; but we frequently get a fair yield from our third planting. I presume a great many will be sceptical in regard to this “third crop business.” It must be remembered that our first sowing is made very early in the spring, and that we do not wait until any of our forage crops mature, but we cut them long before they would be ripe, thereby shortening the time of their growth and leaving the ground to be planted with something else.
The above is no iron rule, but subject to great variations. Our plan is to sow as early as possible in the spring with the earliest maturing grass or grain we can get, and from the time we commence cutting until there is no possibility of getting any return. We sow and plant wherever we have a few rods of bare ground, as soon as any of our crops are maturing or there is something coming forward to take its place. We cut and cure what is left for winter. We advise close seeding in all cases, roots, of course, excepted.