The Redwood gazette. [volume] (Redwood Falls, Minn.) 1873-1940, 1881-12-15

Correspondence Western Rural.
The vast distance between Iowa
and the great markets of the world
renders it impcratively necessary
that her surplus products be put III
the most compact form for shipment
possible. This necessity has been
long recognized and acted upon by
thoughtful farmers, and hence the
preference shown for stock farming
as soon as sufficient means accum,,-
lated could render it possible. These
men soon discovered that it pays 10
feed only the best; and further more,
that the best can seldom be bought,
but must be raised on the farm.
Then the question at once arises,
does it pay to keep a COW whole
year solely for the chance of raising
calf?
Where land is cheap, as in the
lherding counties, tho answer is in
the affirmative, but where it is dear,
say twenty-five dollars per acre and
upwards, it must he answered in the
negative something more than a
calf, however good, must be obtain
ed. But how? For thirty years
our farmers wives have been endeav-
oring to solvc that problem, and for
thirty years they have failed. They
have toiled and drudged at the
churn, and the price Of the butter
doled out in trade at the country
store has not paid for the toll and
drudgery. Still woman's toll proved
two things, that calf raised by
hand is as good at a gear old as a
calf that has followed its dam; and
second, that the runty pig which
would have died on corn and water
alone sweiled out to ample proper.
tons when fed with milk. And
therefore the shrewd farmer saw
that milk must be had for the pig,
that the COW must in some way be
the center of his system, that the pig
and the calf must be raised and thai
the bondage of the wife to the chur,l
must be broken. Hence the unus
ual favor with which the cream.
cry has met in the State, wherever
railroads have rendered creameries
possible. :
The creamery takes away half the
drudgery of the farmers wife. VIVA,
this drudgcry has been let the wo
men of Iowa tell. But whilst it re
moves the drudgery it retains the
income-the monthly Mconae-no,
in store accounts but in creamery
checks-good as gold. And the best
part of it is that this income is de
rived from that part of the milk that
the farmer can most readily spare
1t is a fact not generally known
that for the formation of bone and
muscle, skim-milk, buttermilk and
whole milk are practically equal
The fat removed by the cream car
be replaced at a trifling cost in tn,
form of oil-meal or corn meal, ant
the farmer has the satisfaction O
eating his cake and keeping tn,
larger part OF 1t too.
This monthly income is therefor,
practically clear gain. Having thu
received one profit from his COW:
profit fully covering the cost of he
yearly keep and interest on the in
! vestment-be has in the calf cheal
and an available package in whicl
to condense his grass and hay, straw
and corn-stalks for shipment to TIL
markets of the world. And this i
the second great advantage of tn
tcreamery. When that calf is drivel
to market fully ripe, he carries in hi
hide acres of roughness and wagon
loads of corn, transformed into juicy
-twell naarbled beef, which draws gol,
, from the pockets of Johnny Bull.
/ But this is not all-the surplu
milk after the. calf has been weane'
; amends for the parsimony of natur
(which seems to have strangely Over
looked the marvellous appetite of
: litter Of thrifty pigs and helps t
! prepare anunber Of smaller package
into which our farmers puts gras
and artichokes-corn from the crib
lslops from the kitchen and eve
worms from the fields.
81 But if the creamery blesses th
tfou,,, ~. ~,,: g. - r..