I found that, although the cow lost flesh under my keeping, and a good deal of it too, she gave quite as much milk as she was recommended to give, and at the time she was sold, her account stood as follows, no account having been made of the milk used in the family, then consisting of three persons:
| Cr. | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| By sale of | Milk, at 6 cents per quart | $74.20 | |
| do. | Calf | 5.00 | |
| do. | Cow, November 1 | 18.00 | |
| $97.20 | |||
| Dr. | |||
| To purchase, | April 2d | $35.00 | |
| do. | Hay | 12.00 | |
| do. | Service | 0.50 | |
| do. | Pasture | 15.00 | |
| $62.50 | |||
| Net Profit | $34.70 | ||
I was so well pleased with this result, notwithstanding the unfavorable circumstance of having started with a fat cow, that the next spring I repurchased her at the same price paid the spring previous. But instead of a fat cow then, she was thin enough to afford a good study of animal anatomy. She had had no other feed than corn stalks, for the two months that she had been dry, and was as much thinner than when I sold her; as she was at that time thinner than when I first bought her. In fact, she had been subjected to a gradual system of depletion for a year.
I sold her on the first of October, following, when her account stood as follows, no account having been made of the milk used in the family, numbering three persons, as before:
| Dr. | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| To | purchase | $35.00 | |
| Hay | 12.00 | ||
| Service | 0.50 | ||
| Meal | 6.00 | ||
| Pasture, the same as the previous year | 15.00 | ||
| $68.50 | |||
| Cr. | |||
| By sale of | Milk, at 6 cents per quart | $51.30 | |
| do. | Calf, two weeks old | 3.00 | |
| do. | Cow, October 1 | 12.00 | |
| $66.30 | |||
| Loss | $2.20 | ||
This difference in profit was occasioned solely by the difference of the yield of her milk in the two seasons. The yield for the second season averaged full three quarts per day less than the first, and, at the same time, the quality of the milk was deteriorated in the same proportion as the quantity.
This was my first lesson, acquired by experience. At the same time, I learned another by observation. The two combined added materially to my stock of knowledge.
A neighbor of mine, a German, in the month of January, 1849, purchased a heifer, three years of age the coming spring. She had been kept poor from the time she was weaned. At two years of age she had dropped her first calf, and through her first season of milk had given but little promise as a milker. She had just been dried when he purchased her, and he, without any previous knowledge of the care of cows, commenced feeding her according to his instincts. He fed her six quarts of meal per day, in addition to all the hay she would eat. This system of feeding continued until about the twenty-fifth of March, when she calved. At the time of calving she was in better condition than much of the beef sold in our markets.