Knoxville weekly chronicle. [volume] (Knoxville, Tenn.) 1870-1875, 1873-02-05
Best Feed for Mich Cows.

fore the Vermont Dairymens 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 q great flow of milk, but
the per cent. of water in it is much above
the average of 81. Take q COW from q
green pasture and feed her on dry hay,
and the quantity of milk will be greatly
diminished, while the quality may be im~
proVcd~ Everything n COW eats affects
her milk directly. We have great faith
in cabbage as producing an abundance of
rich milk, but unfortunately the lady who
prCsides over our household has keen
senses, and detects in the milk the least
flavor of cabbage or turnip. We have
sometimes evadtd detection by feeding
cabbage leaves mod ,rately at first and inn
mediately milking, but the increased guam
tity Of the milk il not the taste are apt to
call out the sly question, "What are you
feeding YOUR cows on now?n Sweet corn
fodder, we are confident, gives a richer
milk than common corn. Indian meal
all farmers agree, gives rich milk, while
buckwheat increase the per cent. of water
more rapidly than it does the more valua-
bic 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 he 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 us oat straw, it may be bene~
flied 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 a meTchantable 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
the framework of the young animal. AS
jan 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 Il
samcness about it which is not provocative
of good appetite. AS men crave and
need ii variety of food, SO do COWS. 4 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 of their milk will indicate their
appreciation of these roots. One of the
lest and most economical kinds of feed fog
,Jws, 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 -four and bran. The ash
Of the latter will, on the average, be
six times that of the former, the ash of
dr., fine -four being about one per cent,
AMI that Of bran six per cent. of the weight
of che whole. Bran, therefore, though u
dry looking kind of fodder, is rich in these
elements which form the framework of
animals. and DIR. Graham was doubtless
correct when he advocated making bread
from unbolted -four. Many dairy men
! practice putting couple ofquarts 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 restore to them phosphorus, sulphur,
! potash lime, so, etc, OF which our old
! pastures have become exhausted, these es~
! sential constituents of good soil having
| been carried off in the bones of the animals
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