The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1891-05-14
FARMER AND PLANTER.
pAIRYlNo IN THE SOUTH.
A valuable Industry in which the South
Continues Backward.

Continues Backward
The backward condition of dairying
in the southern states is due to two
causes: First the want of the requisite
knowledge of the business from the
feeding of the cows, the manner OF
milking and caring for the milk up to
the final making and disposing of the
butter. In my own experience, can
say that while the average butter
brought into the stores brings from ten
to fifteen cents, can sell mine faster
than can make it for thirty-five cents
and get the cash for it while the stores
pay for it only in trade. / know many
southern butter-makers who do better,
having a better market close at hand,
or within twenty4four hours Of them.
l have known dairymen IN Geor-
gia to get seventy cents pound
for their butter, and know of many
places where fine butter will be
snapped off at fifty cents per pound,
but the average quality goes begging
at twelve to fifteen cents. This differ
ence is wholly due to the management
| of the cows and the milk and the MAX
ing of the butter. The other cause is,
the summer climate which is too warm
for setting milk in the open air and for
keeping butter in open sheds or rooms
| in the dwelling houses. AS to the first,
all that is required is the proper knowl-
| edge of what should be done or what
should not be done, and in regard to
the second how the heat of the weather
may be moderated by simple methods.
As a rule, cows are not fed well
enough for profit. Very few cows are
worked up to their capacity, and very
| few farmers know what their cows are
capable of. They give their cows lit
tie meal at milking time, more to keep
them quiet than to increase the milk,
and thus get the least yield that the cow
can give. But the purpose of feed is
not to keep the cow alive; it is, or
| should be, to get all the milk and but
ter possible out of her; and this is, to a
certain extent, in proportion to the food
and the kind of it given. A COW viii fill
| her belly with fodder and give say four
| quarts of milk with very little cream on
it. If the owner were trying to fatten
that COW for beef he would not only
give her all the roughness she would
eat, but all the meal she could pack
away with the other food, and then she
would line her inside with the fat and
mix the fat with the lean meat, and the
meal would not be begrudged, because
every cents worth of it would come
back with profit.
This should be done quite as much
with every COW kept for milk as for but
ter making. The cows appetite should
be tempted to get the last ounce of meal
into her stomach. It would not go into
tallow as with dry COW, but Just
where nature intends COW that's Civ
ing milk to put all her spare fat, which
is in her milk, and as butter is worth
many times as much as the fat in the
food is, the cows owner gets a good
profit from the food. There are very
few cows that will not change good
food into good butter. My experience
with cows in both the south and the
north has convinced me that the COM
mon cows of the south are able to make
more butter from the same food than
northern cows. The northern cows
pass through a very cold winter, six
months long, and shivering through
this long, cold season, they lose their
fat in keeping warm, and thus get into
a habit of using up the fat of the food
in this way.
The mild winters of the south. in
which a COW can get some picking in
the pasture every day and never suffer
from the cold, does not use up her food
in this way, but turns it to butter in
the milk, and thus, southern cow fed
as well as a northern cow will make
i quite one-half more butter from the
same quantity and kind of food. If
every southern COW were given, with
good fodder and hay and fresh pasture,
six or eight pounds of corn meal daily,
not pound of northern butter would
be brought to the south, and our farm
ers (if they would make good butter)
might be sending to every northern
town all through the winter fresh
made butter which would sell for thirty
or forty cents per pound. The tables
would be completely turned, in fact
and, instead of buying stale butter at a
high price, our towns and cities would
have fine, fresh article for their use.
any snip VIC SUI lus 10 Cn6 north.
To make this change we need to study
how to feed cows well; to choose the
best foods and to use them literally; to
improve the cows by the better rearing
of the calves, which in time will lead to
larger product of richer milk; to
make our pastures better; to grow
feeding crops; to make silos to preserve
these for winter feeding by which one
acre will keep two or three cows
through the whole winter seasons to
study the best management of the cows
and of the milk and cream; and how to
make the best kind Of butter; how to
overcome the difficulties of our warmer
summer climate which, unless met bv
the best methods would prevent the
handling of the butter easily.
Illinois makes four times as much
butter as Kentucky. Wisconsin makes
eight times as much as North Carolina
or Georgia, and twenty times as much
as South Carolina. But in each one of
/ L