The Austin weekly statesman. (Austin, Tex.) 1883-1898, 1891-07-30

/ circumstances, DuU NiiNhN 49,
ions are favorable, potatoes will
no hard TO beat. OF course, like every
ntber crop. when raised in excess OF
he demands of the home market, they
should be made beforehand at distant
noints. The farmers Of Central and
Southeast Texas can have potatoes in
northern market, where they will sell
at from So to 81 barrel If properly as
sorted and handled. That price
would leave large margin OF prohC
for the producer.
/ Is QUALITY BRED OR FED INTO ACoW!
That is a question asked by the
Rural New Yorker and announced
variously by different eminent breed
ers and dairymen. Mr.. s. M: Bap-
cock of Madison, Wis, contends that
it is bred into the cow and that CHAR
acter of food has little to do with the
quality of the milk. He says; my
opinion is that the quality OF milk so
far as it is measured by the per cent OF
fat depends almost entirely upon the
individual popularity of the animal,
and so long as sufficient nu-
triment is supplied and consumed,
very little upon the kind OF food
of course the food must be of such
nature that it will be relished by the
animal and sufficiently concentrated
to supply the needed nOurishment in
a moderate bulk, otherwise cow will
not, or cannot eat enough to maintain
the normal functions Of the body. Ii
the kind of food has material influ-
ence upon the composition OF milk, 1t
would be possible by modification OF
the ration to so change breed charac-
teristics that typical Holstein COW
would give Jersey milk, or Jersey
COW Holstein milk. This, so far as L
am aware, has never been accomplish
ed in single generation, and L do not
believe that the individual character
of any animal so far as it is manifested
i'm the quality of milk can be mater
tally changed by the kind of food. L
: have known Holstein cows that gave
very Door milk and | have known Jer-
sey cows that gave very poor milk,
but these cows always did this indie
pendent of ration.
External conditions which often are
not apparent, seem to have a greater
influence upon the richness OF milk
than the kind of feed. This is shown
by the fact that the daily variations
i'm the per cent of fat from the same
cow, when no changes have heen
made i'm the ration are often greater
than occur when radical change in
food is made. Change Of environ
ment, change of mixers, in fact any
thing which tends to excite or worry
the COW will often cause decided va
ration in the per cent OF fat III hef
milk, even when the yield is practl-
cally the same. Moreover, the same
conditions which increase the tat In
the case of one cow may diminish 1t
with another.
Feeding experiments conducted
with number of animals usually
show that they are affected differently
by change of ration. With some
cows the milk may contain the same
per cent of fat as before the change,
with others it may be richer and with
others poorer. The general average
may be for or against given ration,
, but it is often the case that the TWO
sides are so evenly balanced that leaV-
ING out single animal would change
the whole result. These individual
peculiarties which appear to be due
to heredity, make it very difficult to
determine satisfactorily the in
fluence of food upon tne
quality of milk, and are undoubtedly
the chief cause for the conflicting
opinions which exist regarding the
value of certain foods for milk pro-
duction."
, Prof. Worth of the North Dakota
experiment station, while agreeing
in the main with the above opinions,
thinks that feed and care goes long
way to establish the quality of a
= breed. He quotes Vile, a high
=, French authority, who speaks OF the
district of Aveyrow, which he divides
into two parts which he calls "rye
: landn and "chalk land" and says:
'The inhabitants of the rye land, or
rye eaters, are puny, thin, angular,
small in stature and ugly rather than
good looking, their domestic animals
resembling them in most points. The
inhabitants of chalk land, who dwell
upon a chalky soil, are well built, tall
and handsome rather than ugly. The
domestic animals participate in the
contrast. Those raised in the rye
growing country become fat when
transferred to the chalky soil" A
Scotch proverb says: "Breed goes in
at the mouth" l would rather say
breed is dependent upon feed.
The capabilities of feed, its
limit of performance of its objects,
is determined by long line of feed
ing, breeding and judicious selection.
Given two varieties of corn, one capa-
BILE of yielding forty bushels, the
other 100 bushels of grain per acre, it
would be folly to attempt by extra
fertilization and care to raise the yield
in single year from the forty bushel
limit to 100. The qualities have been
fixed by long line of selection and
feeding in a fertile soil; so with the
individual cow, her characteristics
and possibilities have been fixed by a
long line of feeding, selection and
breeding up to certain point, beyond
which that animal is not capable of
performing. We may, however, bring
her up to that limit. 1 think it may
be possible to so select foods as to in
crease the fat in milk. 1t is not more