The Western advance. [volume] (Worthington, Minn.) 1872-1874, 1874-07-25
A Plea for the Cows.

READER, are you fond of milk? Do
you like butter or beef? Then have
compassion on the kind, generous COW!
Most farmers feed their horses something
better than straw or badly-cured hay in
the winter, though their work during
that season is light. Horses are USUALLY
kept in comfortable stables, with clean,
dry bedding, renewed every night. They
are also curried and brushed every morn
ing, and fed good hay, oats, chop, etc..
until they are fat as fools,' az if they
were being prepared for the butcher, in
stead of being kept for labor. This is
curious philosophy. A fat man is not in
a condition to endure hard work, nor is
he as comfortable or healthy as Il person
in moderate flesh.
1t will usually be found that those who
thus overfccd their horses are the very
men who starve their cattle. In summer
they are turned into the woods lot, the
fallow field Or the highway; while the
horses are always Gin clover" In winter
the mich COW runs the road by day, and
at night lies or stands shivcring in the
wet or muddy barnyard, or is treated to
the luxury OF Il snow-bank for Il bed. She
eats straw and corn fodder, with an &C.
casional frozen pumpkin! And yet she is
expected to yield daily gallons of that
most indispensable article of food, milk.
Is 1T strange that she grows poor, or that
her calf is unthrifty? If we have no
compassion for the cattle, and disregard
the divine command to treat them with
kindness, considerations of pecuniary
interest ought to correct this cruel and
inhuman practice.
A COW that is poorly fed cannot give
T11rh milk p,,i1l- of
for the plain reason that it is among the
most nutritious of all the substances we
consume, and cannot therefore be manu-
featured from food that does not contain
nutritious elements.
Some farmers instruct their wives that
"c0rn must not be fed to the COWS. be-
cause it dries them up" But the women
God bless them!-havc commission
upon the kind and docile animal upon
whose system such severe drafts are being
constantly made, and therefore insist
upon furnishing food that will repair this
waste.
High feeding for cows in milk pays as
we'll as generous feeding for steers. Let
us see. Milk sells readily in the country
villages for four cents a quart, while in
the cities it brings Il higher price. Sup
pose the COW to give three gallons day,
we have forty-eight cents, or something
over fourteen dollars per month, as the
value of her product What other ami
NAL will make such generous returns for
food, care and generous feeding?
Ii we consider the profits resulting
from raising the calves for steers we
shall have reasons equally conclusive in
favor of generous keep. Whether mar
kets be good or bad, the wcll-kept steer,
in good form and of good quality, al
ways sells at profit to the breeder But
we cannot have good form, good condi-
ton, and good quality where the calf was
not properly started. A runted calf be-
comes paunchy" and unthrifty, a form
which subsequent good keep will seldom
| correct
The true principle therefore is, if we
regard the matter only in pecuniary
point of view, to feed well, feed as much
rs possible indoors, and we shall have
more manure; and the manure where
| the cattle are we'll fed will be of better
quality. Our land needs the manure as
much as our cattle need the nutritious
food; and thus it is, as the English say,
the more we feed the more we can pro-
duce. We should never feed in the high
| way. If we cannot feed indoors we
should certainly feed on our own land
and aim to select place where it will
90 the most good.-T. G. j., an National
| LlUe Stock Journal.