Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1890-01-13
AQrieeltnrat Department.
Grading up Dairy stock.

UneOfy 10 one VI ohC DS0o N
the country. 1t is said that he has
made an average of 800 pounds of
butter to a cow from his large dairy
The following from Mr.. Douglas at
the meeting of the Massachusetts
state board of agriculture, is worth
reading and studying:
An unwise governmental policy
has with reckless haste opened lands
for settlement faster than was neces-
sary and stimulated an agricultural
vandalism never before witnessed.
Our new territory is being simply
overrun. not farmed. Westward no!
has been the cry until the east has
been drained of both men and money
and the market value of our farm
lands has been reduced fully 90 per
cent. The farmer struggling to pay
for his home, toiling under a heavy
mortgaged Indebtedness, while the
markets in which he must sell his
wares are broken and ruined, is the
result of such unstatesmanlike pol
icy.
These adverse conditions have
come to stay. Hence the question
of success in agriculture is to be
question of ''the survival of the fit
test" dependent upon intelligent as
we'll as moral force. Old methods
must ego to the wall" The best OF
skill, stock and appliances must be
substituted for plodding stupidity,
scrub stock and the implements of a
departed age.
Dairying has been affected by the
devil and his associates, and not the
federal government. But the time
is near at hand when the keynote
must be"cheap productions and supe-
rior products" We must improve
the quality to increase home con-
sumption and build up foreign de-
mand. We must produce cheaply
here in New England that we may
compete with the West, hold our own
markets and still show q profit.
The question of cheap production
obviously embraces all of the means
by which dairy wares are produced
Rnt the dairvman cannot afford, be-
cause of poor markets, to lower
the quality of his stock, but he must
secure the best at the lowest possible
cost. He cannot afford to pay fabu'
lous prices for blOoded cows to be
used for practical dairy work, vet he
cannot afford to do without the bes
blooded sires.
With good average herds of grade
or native COWS he can produce TIT
best dairy stock by needing these
natural laws and conditions which
govern reproduction. Those law
which govern transmission are con
veyed in the expression, "like beget
like 1t is law of such potency
that if perfectly applied and all tn
conditions of its application uniform
" the same through a long success
sion of generations, it would un
doubtedly result in perfect trans
mission to offspring of characteristic
of the parents.
Some of the external indications o
a good butter-producing COW are:
1st. A large evenly balanced uddel
extending we'll forwards and back
> wards.
, I'd. Medium-sized teats, not to
closely set together, yielding the
. milk easily and in large smoot
streams.
Sd. A broad posterior with bod
tapering towards the head, givln
!, ample room for a broad escutcheC
and development of the udder, wit
loose folds of skin in rear of udder
. heifers and COWS not in full flow
milk.
4th. A good development of t
a digestive organs.
: 9TH. A large, crooked, well dev'
J. oped milk vein.
# 9th. A thin, pliable yellow ski
20 with its accompaniment, fine, sc
a. coat.
ii 9TH. A nervous but docile tempe
~ ament. Gentle when well treate
! but intelligent enough to resist abuS
Hefers with good, natural butte
: producing qualities, judiciously rear
. from the outset, fed literally on we
= balanced rations, properly milk
!. and cared for, will give milk throu
- the entire year, when in calf annual
and at maturity reach product
:. capacity of 800 pounds or more
OuGCof per du1lliiI' III NaStii iNS "
- bred and developed, one of the m
important duties of the herdsman
to attend to the matter of drying
'ie such heifers at least month Def
Oh thew are due to come in, otherN
I'LL their vital energies are overtaX
'ef and they may thus be permaner
'io injured.
'd- [ have said that henceforth the
are note of New England agricult
lty must be ''cheap production and su
ice rior quality" I will assume that
net cost of labor and keeping a d;
no COW, after making due allowance
his the value or the skinned milk,
ian termilk and fertilizing material
md tanned upon the farm, is $40 per
ent mum. With these conditions the
,ro- of production per pound of bu
tho I'LL no &c follows With q herd