The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1881-01-15
Butter Dairying in Winter.

DUSNCA OoAA JAhAS IA 'AAOOAs
In ATTITUDES where the summers are
long and hot, water often scarce or
poor, pastures dry and unthrifty, and
insects thick and troublesome, dairying
in winter is more appropriate than dur
ing the warm season. Water will then
be more plentiful and wholesome, and
stock can be better fed and made more
comfortable. 1t is easier to protect
against moderate cold than against
heat, and drought, and flies. But where
the summers are cooler and the winters
so severe as in New York and New En-
gland, the situation is materially altered.
The summer then is the most comfort
able part of the year and the most IA
vorable time for producing milk. and
dairymen very naturally and properly
fall into the habit of carrying on their
operations in the summer alone. So
far as cheese is concerned there is no
occasion for changing this apparently
natural order of things. Cheese can be
manufactured so as to carry through
the winter and spring and be quite as
desirable, if not more so, than when
more recently made. With butter it is
different. Butter is relished best when
fresh from the churn, and the difference
in price between new and old butter is
generally enough to pay for some pains
to produce it in winter, but it is idle to
talk of making such rule general.
To carry on dairying in winter re-
quires special preparations for the care
both of the stock and the milk. Warm
buildings must be provided in advance.
There is no use in making the attempt
without them. Cows while in milk are
extremely sensitive to cold, and it has
a very depressing influence upon milk
secretion. Cows which under more
favorable conditions would yield liber-
ally, soon fall below profitable produc-
ton if much exposed to the winds and
storms of winter. 1t is true of all farm
animals that outlay for keeping them
comfortable is more than paid back in
food saved, but when COWS are in milk
the necessity of comfort is doubled; it
insures against loss in keeping and loss
in reducing yield at the pail. To adopt
winter dairying in New York would re-
quire material change in the quality
of cattle food as well as in the means of
cattle comfort. The food now general
ly used for wintering dairy stock is
quite unsuited to yield or quality of
milk. The hay which constitutes the
great bulk of winter feed, is cut alto
gether too late. Dairymen wait for a
bulk of fodder that will fill their mows
and feel heavy to handle. They wait
till the rich juices of the grasses have
wasted away; the high color and flavor
of their fats have become pale and
insipid and their starch, gum and sugar
been changed into woody fibre; with
this they fill their barns and are satis-
fed.
But such fodder will not make good
milk, nor enough of it to pay. To make
milking in winter profitable, the COWS
must have food which is either green
and succulent, or which was cut and
dried in a green stage, so that it shall
be not only rich in the elements of milk
but be SO easy digested that enough can
be digested to support the bodies of the
cows and have something left to make
milk of. Hay, as generally cut is so
scanty in available nutrition, and
digests so slowly and imperfectly, that
cows can only use enough of it, though
they keep constantly full, to do more
than supply daily waste. If they give
milk it will be at the expense of their
stock of flesh and fat. Changing the
bulk of dairy work from summer to
winter, and having the time the cows
must go dry include July and August,
admits of the best possible division of
farm labor. 1t saves the necessity of
extra service at high rates in the busy
season and relieves the strain from
overwork by crowding the labor of the
year into six months, which too often
ruins the health both of the farmer and
his family, mars the pleasures of farm
life, and leads to its abandonment. 1t
not only makes the work easier, but al
lows more of it to be done by the farm
err and his family without hiring.
If help must be had, instead of hiring
through the hurry of work to turn the
hands away at its close to spend in
winter the earnings of summer, winter
dairying admits of employing help
during the year, and thus contributing
to thrift and good habits in those en-
ployed, in the place of encouragement
and decentralization by an enforced idle
ness of half the year-a moral consider
alton of no small Importance. BY pro-
viding the necessary food and shelter
and attending with a constant and strict
watchfulness to the comfort and neces-
sites of the herd-in other words, by
putting brains into the work thought
full and attentive dairymen can produce
quite as large yields in winter as in
summer, and make it pay, especially SO
long as the difference in price between
new and old butter is maintained. But
men who haven't the brains to use or
who are careless and unthoughtful, or
not disposed to give a constant and in
telligent supervision to the business,
had better let winter dairying alone,
unless they are in warmer climate
than that of New York State.-Prof. L.
y. ATnold, IN NJ Y Tribune.
Skates are Uoinu un-whila fba