Green-Mountain freeman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1844-1884, 1877-08-08
DaIrying and Keeping ND the Firm.


Prof Stewart, at a meeting of the Amer
can Dairyman's Association in Canada
spoke of this subject as follows:
While butter forms four-fifths of tine
marketable product of the dairy, it con
tains no mineral matter. 1t is composed
wholly of carbon and water, and if pure
is entirely combustible, taking no valuable
constituents from the soil. All its ele.
ments may be derived from the atmos.
phere. This kind of dairying, then doe,
not impoverish; but when the refuse milk
is fed to animals, the mineral constituent,
nearly all 60 back to the soil in higher
state of organization, and may even in
crease its fertility.
The effect of feeding refuse milk to pigs
must be considered. The pig has the least
weight of bone in proportion to weight OF
carcass, and it is therefore better for the
soil to feed the refuse milk to pigs, for
then the least phosphate of lime is sold;
but even when the skinned milk is only
fed to calves, only small proportion Of
the constituents of the milk is sold, vet it
is not so profitable to feed calves Except
such heller calves rs are necessary to re-
plenlsh the dairy as to feed pigs; for the
same quantity of skinned milk will make
more pounds, live weight, upon PIGS than
upon calves and the pigs are usually worth
more per live weight than calves. Sixteen
pounds of skinned milk will make Il
pound of dressed pork on pigs from four
to twenty'six weeks old; and if worth
eight cents per pound will pay one-half
cent per pound for the refuse milk, thus
yielding an increase of twenty dollars per
COW for the season.
The manure made from PIGS fed upon
milk is very rich, and when this is prop
erly deodorized with muck, and re-arplied
to the soil, there will he little loss of fer
tility by dairying. But if the milk is Sold
all the mineral and heterogeneous constitu-
ents OF the milk are lost to the soil, except
the indigestible and unassimlated Dor
lions of the cows food. together with the
constant waste of her system, and this re.
turn of food to the soil does not exceed
one-thild of the food eaten by the vigorous
and large-yielding COW. Hence: two
thirds OF what the COW consumes is carried
off and lost. If the steer lays on three
hundred pounds of live weight during the
pastnring season, twenty-five per cent of
TINS IS dry substance, and seventv-live per
cent water. The steer will thus store up
seventy-fve pounds of dry substance.
Two pounds of milk contain AS much
dry substance as one pound of live beef.
II, then, cow yields four thousand
pounds of milk during the pasturing sea
son, it would contain live hundred pounds
Of dry substance; and this is, of course.
obtained from the grass she eats. Hence
the ultimate impoverishment of the soil
must ensuc. The relation of factory cheese
making to fertility should also be consid
cred. The tactOryman takes his milk to ,
The factory and brings back only the whey
or milk sugar. Whey is simple carbon
md water,containing no mineral elements,
save the small amount of casein and albu.
men that may have tloated of in it. When
he milk contains albumen, this passes off
n the whey, and adds so much to its value
Is food and as a fertilizer. Whey has
'ery little mineral value. It's only office
$ to supply animal heat and produce fat.
he caseln of the curd contains nearly nil
he mineral matter, and is sold in the
hecse--the soil gaining next to nothing.
jheese dairying is practically the same ms
cling milk, SO far rs loss of the fertiliz-
ne constituents of the soil are concerned.
n the discussion which followed his pa-
'er, Prof. Stewart said that the sum of two
Iollars per COW, expended in the purchase
II German potash salts and of fifty pounds
# ground bone, to the acre, would restore
il the fertility lost by dairying.