The Baltimore County union. [volume] (Towsontown, Md.) 1865-1909, 1875-04-17
From our Agricultural Correspondent
TsErsipS FZOUOri7lg MiLE, dc.


They always did and always will, but the ex-
tent of the disagreeable taste can be neutralized
in some measure by feeding other good food
and by scalding the mixer cream. But when
given in sufficient quantity to force great flow
of milk there will be faint, and also the color
of good butter will be lost. The best way to
avoid this trouble is to give the turnips to dry
cattle, young stock or to cows sucking calves,
if there are any, and to grow some carrots and
mangels or some parsnips, either Of the three
being excellent for milk and butter, and the
three combined are fisrtra Let the parsnips
remain in the ground all winter and feed
the two others together does we'll. Now is
the time to prepare the land, and few acres
of each in a field which was well cultivated
and cleaned between corn last year is the best
for the purpose. Draw out ridges after nice
filth has been gained and put in good, half
rotten manure. If an extra heavy crop is de-
sired, guano may be sowed on the dung and the
ridges turned back over the rows. Then when
the seed has been drilled in on the ridge over
the manure, good field roller should go over
the whole thus pressing tine soil down and max
ing it almost level, which makes the cultiva-
ting between better and prevents drOuth dry
ing out the moisture as it would in highly
raised ridge.
1t is very little expense to grow about 500
bushels to the acre in this way. In the moist
climate of England double that quantity is
grown. Turnips can be sown after crop of
~, &c ctad ot 70 Rf1t
they are less valuable, excepting the Swedish
variety, (or ruta baga,) which are far more fat
tening, but have the same objectional quality
of favoring milk and butter.
Of all the errors, and really very great mis-
taken notions, the suppositon that feeding tur-
nips Immediately after milking will prevent
the taste of turnips being detected, is one of the
most silly. Yet in the Country Gentleman, the
Rural Neao Yorker, and other papers, farmers
gravely give this plan as a remedy. Let any
sane man look at the statement and think one
moment if the feeding just before milking could
possibly effect the fluid already in the udder
and waiting to be withdrawn. For is it thought
that the while a cow is'chewing the turnips or
on their being swallowed that the juice goes in
simultaneously into the udder, and if not so, and
the food has to undergo process of mixing
with the fluids and blood of the animal, what
is to prevent the next milking being tainted :?
Directly the milk is out of the udder more be-
gins to come in all through the hours inter
vening till the next milking. Of course any
food eaten just after one milking can't effect
that milk which has gone from the COW, but it
is exactly in time to digest and act on the milk
at the next time. 1t is so perfectly ridiculous
for man to tell you first to give turnips to in
crease the milk and then to say by giving them
to the cow after milking the flavor is not con-
veyed to the milk or butter. Ask any one OF
the farmers wives, or other peoples wives, if
they were to eat or drink anything which would
effect their babies whether it would make any
difference when they eat or drank it, unless
they had the next milk drawn away and not
let the baby have the breast till the effects from
the food or drink was out of the system.
Turnips are valuable for young cattle and
sheep, and the Swede to be fed after Christmas
is much more valuable. But for dairy purposes,
carrots, beets and parsnips are the right kind
of roots.