Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1889-02-15

ed that it was possible to keep a COW on an
acre Of tillable land 1t should be easy to
keep COW to every two acres of tillable
land
DR. Sholes Of Boston and Oak Ridge farm,
Dummerston, being introduced, spoke Of
the improvements in agriculture which had
been made during the past thirty years.
Travelling through the Connecticut valley
last fall, he noticed great number Of corn
fields spoiled by the frost-the fodder
bleached and the corn moist, mOuldy and
rotten. There was a better way by which
a large part of the crop might have been
saved. If it had been put at once in a slo
it would have been worth nearly as much
as an average crop. He had % acres of
corn last year. 1t was not damaged to any
extent by the frost The ears were picked
husked and cribbed in the field at a cost
less than two-thirds as much as by the or
binary method The fodder was put in a
silo and made sweet siage Wel-matured
northern corn makes sweet silage. There
were 5000 bushels of corn ears and 100 tons
of silage. The entire cost of the crop was
|
as equal to one ton Of hay. One acre of
cultivated land should keep COW summer
and winter. He thought that silage would
revolutionize farming in the Connecticut
valley. He is keeping a hundred head of
cattle
J. G.. Newton Of Dummerston inquired
of Prof. Cooke about the value Of apple
pomace.
Cooke-Am using it at the experiment
station, and think it valuable We preserve
it as ensilage.
G. d. Whtman-Is the pomace worth
more for feeding cattle than the apples
Cooke-Yes the cider has but little feed
ing value, and being removed, the remain
der is worth more.
Mr.. Allen made some remarks about June
grass, which, if cut early, he considered
one Of the best kinds of grass for quality
Of hay.
At the Thursday evening session Geo. 5.
Philbrick of Titon, n. H., member of the
New Hampshire board of agriculture gave
a very instructive account of his method of
treating and
Feeding Cows for uilk.
He said that he was a plain, practical
farmer, whose knowledge was of the sort
that hard experience and the necessity of
making his business pay had taught him.
He had seen the West had been farmer
four years on the prairies of Illinois, work
ed his way farther along beyond the Miss
issippi, got into the Sacramento valley in
California, up into Oregon among the big
timber trees of the Willimantic valley, and
into Washington territory He had come
back and settled on farm in New Hamp-
shire and he believed that there were as
good opportunities in Vermont and in New
England as anywhere. But the farmers of
the New England states must take up spec
ialties, so as not to come in competition with
the West. If we cannot compete with them
now, how will it be when the immense
country west of the Mississippi opened up
10y the Pacific railroads is under cultiva-
ton There are places there where fur
row might be drawn thousand miles north
and south without obstruction, except for
the streams and rivers He had taken for
his speciality the dairy and the production
of milk. In this the West could not sue
cessfully compete with New England. He
had determined to make study of his
specially and to understand it for himself ;
and far as he had done 50 he had made
it pay. He knew how much milk his cows
gave, what it was worth. and what it cost
him. few years ago not a man in his town
could have told how much milk each of his
cows gave, or how much butter it made.
He began by weighing the feed of six cows,
and weighing their milk. He found it av-
eraged $50 cost to keep a COW a year, and
he got an average Of 2900 pounds Of milk
He had since reduced the cost of keeping
from 26i cents per day to II cents and had
increased the quantity of milk. He feeds
ensilage-feeds in the morning at ) clock ;
COW will eat from three pecks to bushel
of ensilage. At noon feeds five to seven
pounds of hay Turns out at nine O'Clock
to water, and waters again in the after
noon. For grain ration he feeds equal
parts by weight of bran, cotton seed meal,
and corn and cob meal mixed aud fed twice
a day with the coarse fodder, two quarts of
the mixed meal at each feeding There is
no reason, he said, why the New England
states should not be the best dairy region in
the world He had heard it said here that
the average quantity of butter made from
COW was 1870 pounds. In New Hampshire
he did not believe it was more than 100
pounds. He had been offered a herd of
New Hampshire cows at SO each, and an
other herd, that the owner considered lit
tie extra, for Sl7 each. No one could af-
ford to keep cheap cow
O. /. Miner-How long would you keep
a COW in milk
Mr.. Philbrick-I prefer to have my cows
90 dry for six weeks, in July or August
Can get the most profit FROM them by hay
ing them come in about the first of Septem-
Der. | feed cows all the time when in
milk, but do not feed cotton seed when the
cows are on grass Mr. Philbrick spoke in
an easy unpretentious style, and made ma
ny good points which do not appear in this
report, closing with eloquent words of ad-
vice to young men and suggestions as to
the possible future of agricultural progress
Prof. Cooke explained the methods used
at the station for weighing milk and test
ing its quality. Weighing the milk of each
COW in herd has been systematized so
that it takes less than a minute at a milk
ing to keep the record. Cards with spaces
for night and morning for each day in the
week, designed to hang in the stall for keep
ing the record, are sent from the station
free, on request.
Col. Hooker called attention TO an offer
of premium of $500 each for the best
acre of corn, oats or potatoes, by the
American Agricuturist, and guaranteed
an additional premium of $50 to any one in
Vermont who.wins one of these prizes.
Col. Hooker then introduced Hon. VIM
Chaplin with the remark that he was very
glad to be there, for he would rather hear
Chaplin talk, any time, than to hear Patti
sing. Mr. Chaplin said that he hardly knew
whether to take the colonel's remark as a
compliment OF not for he didn't know Patti
He knew Polly, and Permelia, and several
others, but nothing about Patti. He then
read an instructive, well-made paper on
Cultivated and Slowed crops" but often
stopped reading TO talk as when he said
that his boys once raised 100 bushels of
corn to the acre and took the prize offered
by the University of Vermont, but he
guessed it might have been dried down to
about hundred bushels He once had 30
feet in length of boys at home. He hoped
the next generation would be smarter than
their fathers. His children were. They
took after their mother
Mr.. Chapin's paper gave statistics of the
principal grain crops and treated of their