The morning call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1878-1895, 1895-01-30
ON WESTERN RANCHES.
Subjects Of Interest to the
AgrieulturiSt.
ENSILAGE FOR DAIRYMEN.
Value Of Experience and Study in the
Apiary.
SPRING CULTIVATION OF FLOWERS.
The Care Of Domestic Animals During the
Rainy SeaSOn-POintS for the
Poultry Yard.

Frank S. Chaplin contributes to the Santa
Rosa Republican an article upon the dairy
business which isvery practical. He says:
eve are depending almost entirely on the
natural grass growing on land heavily
shaded and generally inclosed in one large
pasture. The COWS have more than plenty
for part of the year and a struggle for
existence for the balance. Such thing as
a test for dairy COWS has only lately been
heard of, and the diaries show that they
have been bred by luck and chance.
Suppose that dairymen raise such crops
as sorghum, ensilage, root crops, squashes,
cowpeas and horsebeans in proportion to
make a ration balanced for producing but
ter. Here are reports from several of them.
Mr.. Peters raises sorghum every year to
keep up the flow of milk after the grass
dries up in July. Cows eat it eagerly and
it produces twenty tons or more per acre.
Ensilage is the mainstay of dairymen in
the famous Elgin district. When the corn
begins to glaze they haul it to the silo
where the cutter chops it into short lengths
and elevates it into tight bin from which
it is fed out at any time of year. The crop
yields fifteen to twenty tons per acre and
excels almost any other single feed for
producing better The silo costs as much
as barn would cost to hold hay to keep
the cows as long. A. P. Martin of Two
says that if it was not for his silo his dairy
would be for sale.
Squashes, beets and carrots are probably
economical feed for butter in the order
named. Either crop will produce great
amount of feed.
Cow peas are raised for stock food every
where in the Southern States. A. P. Mar
tin has been experimenting with them and
reports that he can grow four tons of COW
w pr no
that one ton of COW peas is worth four tons
of hay for butter.
Horse beans have been chosen by E. w.
Steele as the cheapest substitute he can
produce to take the place of the costly oil
cake. He reports that they grow rapidly,
produce immense crops and are very val
liable addition to butter ration.
Egyptian corn has been highly recon-
mended for pasturage when sown thick
and fed by turns in several fields. When
corn is knee-high turn in the cattle, and
after they have eaten it down change
fields, and the first will again be fit for feed
in a few weeks.
By clearing the trees from half the land
and raising such crops as these in rotation
in such quantities that all could be con-
sumed when at its best, it is not too much
to say that four times as many cows can
be kept on the same ranches and given all
they can eat the whole year around. Now
it remains to prove the statement that one
COW we'll bred and well fed can be made to
produce as much as two bred by chance
and fed by spells.
BY. Weeks of Pescadero has herd of
grade Jerseys that he feeds well and he has
received from his sixty cows an average of
$40 pounds each. They are kept upon
thirty acres of valley land and 127 acres of
hill pasture, He says that he buys very
little feed, but that he feeds what skinned
milk he has to spare back to the cows. If
we call his 127 acres of hill pasture equal to
seventy acres of valley land he is already
above our mark of 200 pounds OF butter to
the acre.
Away back in snowy Wisconsin Hiram
Smith of Sheboygan attained the standard
for his dairy ranch of one cow to the acre.
In the first place the Babcock test is a
great educator and it was expected that
the manager of the creamery would visit
every dairy two or three times year and
take sample of each cows milk to the
creamery to test. He would hand to the
dairyman book or card with each cows
name and test entered and the request
that one days milking from each be
weighed as often as once month. Then
would come the time for wedding out and
breeding up with something better than
guess work to start from. Another step
would be to put the dairy in a way to Sc
cure sires from noted butter families.
Don't stop at getting pure-bred animal
of the tribe you fancy, but remember that
no breed is good breed unless the COW is
good COW. The subject of training cows
for producing milk should also receive
attention.
Seed of the new crops recommended
would be procured and experiments in
their cultivation lin the garden first) would
be encouraged. Then substantial prizes
would be offered every year for the greatest
amount of butter fat produced per acre.
Their leading dairymen would be encour-
aged to write upon these topics for the pa
pers in their native language and those
papers be encouraged to reprint from Eng
1ish papers such articles as would lead in
these directions.
1.-THE manager would take all this trouble
to improve the condition of the dairymen,
knowing that every time he doubled the
output of his plant he trebled its value"