Knoxville daily chronicle. [volume] (Knoxville, Tenn.) 1870-1882, 1873-01-31
Best Feed for Mich Cows.

The following is from an essay read be-
fore the Vermont Dairymen's Association,
by Alexander Hyde, of Massachusetts,
But the circumstances that most affect
the quality and quantity of the milk is the
food. The luxuriant and succulent grass
of June produces great flow of milk, but
the per cent. of water in it is much above
the average of 81. Take cow from a
green pasture and feed her on dry hay,
and the quantity of milk will be greatly
diminished, while the quality may be im>
proved. Everything cow eats affects
her milk directly. We have a great faith
in cabbage as producing an abundance OF
rich milk, but unfortunately the lady who
presides over our household has Keen
senses, and detects in the milk the least
flavor of cabbage or turnip. We have
sometimes evaded detection by feeding
cabbage leaves moderately at first and inn
mediately milking, but the increased guam
| tity of the milk ii not the taste are apt to
| call out the sly question, "What are you
| feeding your cows on now?" Sweet corn
| fodder, we are confident. gives richer
| milk than common corn. Indian meal
all farmers agree, gives a rich milk, while
buckwheat increase the per cent. of water
more rapidly than it does the more valua-
BILE properties. Glover, cut green, greatly
improves the quality of milk. Being
leguminous plant, it should add to its
caseine rather than to its butter. Peavines,
also leguminous, are extensively used at
the South, where the grasses do not flour
ish, as feed for cows, and are said to pro-
duce excellent milk.
There>can be no question but that grain
cut before it goes to seed will produce more
and better milk than after all its virtues
have been spent in their legitimate pur-
pose of producing seed after its kind. If
the hay has been made from grass as dry
and woody as oat straw, it may be bene>
fitted by being cut and mOistened, but can
never be restored to its original nutrition
any more than the daughters of Tobias
could rejuvenate their aged father by cut
ting him up and boiling him.
All the roots add to the flow of the milk
and improve its quality. They furnish
both food and drink, being largely COM
posed of water. The feeding of roots does
not save as much hay as some suppose.
They keep the animal in good health and
appetite, and are valuable in their sanitary
or manurial effects rather than as an econ |
omizer of hay. The increase of milk and |
manure is very manifest from the feeding |
Of roots. Potatoes make the best milk, but |
at present prices we can hardly afford to |
feed those of merchantable size and quail |
ity. The small pOtasoes can be put to no |
better use than food for young stock and |
mich COWS. They furnish much saline
matter, thus adding to the specific gravity |
of milk and to the material for building up |
the framework of the young animal. AS |
an observing dairy woman once said to us,
"potatoes give body to milk"
1t is cruel to tax cows in winter for their |
milk and give them nothing but. dry hay
from which to manufacture it. 1t cut be
fore maturity, this hay contains all the |
elements of milk; but it is dry fodder, and
if it constitute the only food of the cow,
day after day, for six months, there is a
sameness about it which is not provocative
of good appetite. AS men crave and
need variety of food, so do cows. A few
beets, or turnips or carrots should be fed to
them each day, and the sleek coats of the
animals and the improved quantity and
quantity .f their milk will indicate their
of these roots. One of the
best and most economical kinds of feed for
COWS, both in summer add winter, is the
bran of wheat and rye. The husk or bran,
as may be seen by burning similar quanti-
ties of fine flour and bran. The ash
of the latter will, on the average, be
six times that of the former, the ash of
dry, fine flour, being about one per cent,
and that of bran six per cent. of the weight
of the whole. Bran, therefore, though
dry looking kind of fodder, is rich in these
and DR.. Graham was doubtless
correct when he advocated making bread
from unbolted flour. Many dairymen
practice putting couple of quarts of wheat
bran into six or eight quarts of whey, and
feeding it to their cows night and morning,
thereby improving their milk, their cows
and their pastures. The Improvement of
the latter is specially manifest, and the
bran restores to them phosphorus, sulphur,
limo ca of which
pastures have become exhausted, these es>
sential constituents of good soil having
been carried off in the bones of the animals
and the grain and dairy products sold.