Rocky Mountain husbandman. [volume] (Diamond City, Mont.) 1875-1943, 1876-02-03
DAIRY DEPART NJ ENT.
HOW TO IMPROVE A BUTTER HERD.

LII q AZ - I
easy reach of the large towns and cities, the
making Of butter is the most profitable use
of milk. A few, within an hours ride Of
customers or of the railroad depot, can
sell milk to advantage. Farmers more re-
mote from market can best dispose of their
milk at the cheese factory. These are now
so numerous, and so well managed, and the
cheese is Of so good a quality, that there is
very little %f1uctuation in the price, and the
business is fairly remuneratiye. The I'M
portation to England and other European
countries is SO steadily increasing that cheese
farmers are likely to be well rewarded for
their labors for many years to come. line
butter farms lie in the belt between the
cheese and the milk producers. They have
a good home market, and have the advan-
tage Of a personal acquaintance with the
families they supply with butter. All the
butter they can make is readily taken at the
market price, or a few cents per pound
above. These families are of the most
thrifty and cultivated class, have nice tastes,
and are willing to pay for the esthetic quali~
ty Of butter. They like the high color, the
Waxy texture, and the delicate bouquet of
butter fresh from the dairy. They do not
like the name or odor of store butter, and
will have that which is fresh from the farm
it they can get it. This is a very desirable
class Of customers for any farmer to have.
They are able to pay for what they want,
and will patronize the butter maker that
caters to their tastes. Skilled labor here
comes to a good market. 1t is a good thing
for the dairy woman to know that her but
ter is going to a home market where her
skill willbe appreciated. A sense of respon-
sibility for the utmost cleanliness and skill
in the whole process Of manufacture is kept
up that is difficult to obtain where butter
goes to a distant market.
Farmers who keep butter herds are in a
condition to profit Immediately in the inn
provement OF their cows. Everything they
can prokuce in the line of {" gilt-edged but,
ter comes to a hungry market. The stock
kept upon those farms are generally native,
improved more or less by selection. 1t is
only occasionally that there is found a low
grade Devon, Ayrshire, or Jersey, among
them.
The most desirable improvement that can
be made ut small cost is to procure the SER
vice of a thoroughbred Jersey bull, and raise
the heifer calves from the best mixers. 1t
is about as well settled as anything can be
by experiment, that the Jersey is the best
breed to transmute grass and other feed into
butter. For a given amount of food you
get the most butter, and the butter is of the
price in the market. In some of the suburb
an diaries, where pure Jerseys are kept, the
butter is engaged to regular customers at a
dollar a pound and upwards. Sixty to sew
enty-five cents a pound are not
prices for a nice article. Of course, these
prices could not be obtained at once by
every one who should undertake to make
Jersey butter. But such an ideal in the
farmers mind would be an incentive to inn
proyement, and could hardly fail to secure
better butter and better prices.
The great objection to this Improvement
in most cases would probably be the high
price OF the Jersey stock. IF the improve
ment were made through the thoroughbred
bull, it would not be beyond the means of
most thrifty dairy farmers. If man keeps
from fifteen to twenty COWS he must have a
bull ofsome kind, and, if of his own raising.
it must have cost twenty to thirty dollars in
hay and grass alone at a year old. The
breeders of Jersey have an excess of bulls
that they make veal of for want of a better
market. They may be of good pedigree.
but defective in color or points. and SO arc