The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1895-04-30

crooked, branched, with extensions
entering large orifces; udder, capa-
cious, flexible, we'll developed both IN
front and rear; teats we'll formed, VIDE
apart and of convenient size; escutch
con large and fine development. This
1 would rather illustrate by selecting
COW out of your herd. would rather
select COW with my eyes tight shut
and handle her than to look at her and
not touch her.
After having and knowing how to
select a good COW the next question is
how to take care of her. This varies
forom North to South.
In the North we would first say,
keep her warm and comfortable in
winter; while IN the S)uth would
first say, keep her cool, comfortable,
give her good fresh water and keep the
flies from her. In dairying, one of the
essentials to success is cleanliness,
from the calf to the matured animals !;
from the milk in the stable to the but
ter ready for market.
Your stable should be comfortable,
cool and well ventilated in summer,
warm in winter, and should be thor
oughly cleaned out every morning.
find land plaster valuable absorbent
and disenfectant, absorbs and retains
the amonia which is so valuable in
manure. Cow should not be pastured
in the middle of the day, especially
not where there is no shade or running
water. get my best result by pas
turing at night, keeping the COWS in a
cool stable throughout the day. The
milking should be done at regular
periods or hours, and by the same per-
son. The milk should be drawn easily
and without any pulling. The COWS
should be MIXED perfectly clean at
every milking. I find that more gas
get or diseases of the udder originate
from not clean milking than from all
other causes. Heavy mixers should
be MIXED three times day. The food
should be as nearly balanced ration
as can be fed. This seems to vary
with every COW, so that no fixed amount
can be set, but / believe that good,
sweet grass is as nearly a balanced
ration as can be found anywhere. Peo
pie of this State, es we'll as almost the
entire South, have great advantages
over the North in regards to feed, as l
should think they could grow and feed
green crops directly from the field for
at least nine months of the year, by
continually planting corn and other
green crops through the summer sea-
son, but remember that corn in all It's
stages is king of the dairy. find that
corn and cob meal, and cottonseed
meal are the me st nutritious foods and
give me the best results. also had
good results with feeding fresh cotton,
seed hulls. have lately had good re
suits by feeding dried brewers grain,
which get delivered at my farm for
$15 ton, being much cheaper than
bran. Dried brewers grain is dried
brewers malt, with 80 per cent of
water taken out of it. 1 consider it
almcst balanced ration.
However, you must not fail to re
member that there is no branch of
farming that retains the fertility of the
soil like dairying, and whatever grains
you buy makes an addition to the fer
tility. have more than tripled the
production of my farm in the last six
years without the use of commercial
fertilizer, simply with cow manure
from COWS we'll fed.
A few words in regard to breeding
and raising calves: We should not
lose track of the fact that a good bull
is half the herd and that the best is
the cheapest. Select a bull from a
long and rich strain Of actual perform
ers. The calves you wish to raise
should be taken from the dam imme
diately when dropped. 1t requires no
more trouble to learn the calf to drink
from a bucket than to learn to suck its
own mother, and it will then have no
set back by weaving, and no worrying
IF the dam. It should be fed with the
mothers milk for at least four weeks,
at first three times a day and if a
heavy mixer, she should be milked
three times a day, right along, after
which it can be gradually fed with
skim milk. Z When about two weeks
old dry bran should be kept continually
before it 80 that it will learn to eat dry
bran or sweet hay as soon as possible.
Cottonseed meal should in no case be
fed TO young stock or COWS heavy with
calves.