The Mount Holly news. [volume] (Mount Holly, Burlington Co., N.J.) 1891-1942, 1894-01-23

WHAT TO DO WITH OLD COWS.
An Ancient Cow Strengthening Company


An Ancient Cow Strengthening Company
Might BE Formed.
What do milk dairymen do with their old
cows when no longer profitable in the dairy2
What to do with old and worn out
cows in many of the dairy regions is be-
coming quite an important problem of
late years. Before the days of Chicago
beef, when each town had its quota of
butchers who slaughtered for the local
trade, there was no difficulty in dis
posing of them at fair rates, but all that
is changed. In very many communities
the slaughter house has become thing
of the past There are no longer any
butchers. We have in their place
vendors of meat, who simply buy and
cut up carcasses slaughtered in the west
and sent east in refrigerator cars.
In Orange county, N. Y, there is a
considerable trade in old, worn out or
undesirable dairy cattle. Cattle dealers
who sell dairy cattle to farmers have
found it an advantage to their trade to
help the farmers in the disposition of the
old cows. 1t Is safe to say that In an
average dairy of 80 cows about one-sixth
of them must go to the shambles every
year, either from old age or from being
found to be Improbable specimens. As
a rule the farmer will slaughter one or
two of these for his own use and for his
neighbor's, but that leaves large num-
Der yet to be disposed of.
The dealers in Orange county buy OF
the farmers, rarely paying more than
$40 per head, and ship them to Paterson,
N. J., or New York, where they are sold
for cheap beef. One Paterson concern
slaughters 25 per week. There is room
for a good business in this line, it would
seem to The Rural New Yorker. Parties
with ample capital could buy up all
these cattle and ship them to central
point where they could be slaughtered,
and, as can be done in large plants, the
offal could be more proitably utilized.
It would be convenience to dairymen,
that of having ready market for this
stock, even if prices were low.
Most of the dairy cattle of Orange
county-probably nine-tenths of them
are not raised there, but are brought In
by cattle dealers. Formerly these deal
ers used to go about the country, nota-
bly, in the counties of Sullivan, Della
ware, Chenango, Broome and Otsego,
and pick them up wherever found for
sale. But of late years, owing to the ex-
tension of the milk business, this has not
been practicable. Today the dealers go
to Buffalo and Chicago, where they Sc
lect carload lots from the cattle yards,
where they are shipped in by dealers
from all over the country.
The percentage of those who raise
their own stock is, as we have stated,
very small, but it is notable fact that
the most successful dairymen are not
those who buy their stock at large. We
have in mind one dairyman in Orange
county who some years ago bought the
farm and stock of a very successful
dairyman, as dairying went in those
DAYS. The cows had been carefully
selected by good judge and their aver
age production was about 1850 quarts
per year. The new owner bought a
bull, began raising heifers
from his best cows and today the aver
age production of the herd is nearly
4, 900 quarts. Dairymen must learn this
lesson ere they can hope to materially in
crease their profits. Rural New Yorker.