The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1896-07-29
Feeding Stock the Year Round.

1hO iOllOWAuS Ncly lubOISo1lhB al
ticle, written by 7. b. Terry for the
Practical Farmer, contains several val
liable notes of improved farm practice.
We note especially the way the COWS
are fed, the fact that they are turned
out daily, and the care Of the manure
Some writers practice and advise others
to practice keeping cattle up from No
vember to May, but here is q strong
argument against the plan. A man
who farms for profit, as does DIR. Fos-
ter, is a safe man to follow. He has
succeeded in making his farm pay, and
that is what we are all after:
Perhaps you would like to know how
stock is kept on a farm where they do
not pasture. There are quite a few
places now where cows are kept up the
year round as matter of business. 1t
is custom that is growing, where the
land is suitable for tillage and high
priced. had the pleasure of visiting
the Sanitarium farm at Clifton Springs,
N. Y, last winter, and with other New
York Institute men was the guest of DIR.
Foster, and was given every chance to
see what they were doing. They keep
about $50 head of cattle, mostly COWS
and young cattle. Twenty or thirty
calves are raised each year. There were
sixteen horses and quite number of
steers, as they feed steers to make their
own beef. OF course the object of the
farming is to supply the Sanitarium with
milk, cream, butter and beef. They
have home market and good one.
But DR.. Foster is shrewd business
man. He doesn't farm for fun. He
told me that he bought the farm and
stocked it with few animals and said,
now you must pay your way. From
that beginning it has grown up, improv-
ing itself and paying, too. have this
directly from the doctor, and it is inter-
esting to know that with business meth
DDS success will come. There were be-
tween 300 and 400 pigs in the pens to
eat the refuse. Then there was fer
tilizer factory to use up the bones and
offal from their own slaughter house.
This is farming on big scale, truly,
but it is g gathering up the fragments
that nothing be lost" On as large a
farm as this it pays. One would think
there was fertilizer enough made at the
barn in the shape of manure. They
time, except Sundays, and sometimes
two. Just think of what a pile of
manure they make in a year. The
manure gutter is twelve inches deep,
so the stables need not be cleaned on
the Sabbath. Land plaster is used in
the stables, of course. The COWS were
all in swing stanchions. They are
mostly Holsteins, and rather large ones,
tO 70 ri
stanchions are four feet apart. They
have partitions between the cows, from
the stanchions halfway to gutter. There
is water in the barn always within
reach of the cows, but still they are
turned out in the yards short time
! every day when it is pleasant. This |
; believe in. The constitutions of the
calves raised must certainly be better
than where the cows are kept con-
stantly confined. Although they may
keep in good health and milk as well
, when never let out, such treatment
must tell on the offspring in time. A
COW, to a certain extent is machine,
as is often stated, but yet she is more.
These COWS are fed ensilage only, nc
hay or other dry, coarse food. When
was there, each one was receiving two
II and one-half pounds of cottonseed
D meal, and the same quantity of new
process oil meal per day. This is feed
ing heterogeneous food heavily, but re-
n member they are large cows, and they
have been gradually brought up to this
heavy feeding. Ensilage and this grain
is all they get. But they have two
kinds of ensilage If / remember cor
rectly they have thirteen silos, but not
t, enough to hold all their corn. When
was there, January 26, the corn was
. not all in. What they could not get in
d was cut and left in the field in large
shocks. The amount of manure anc
fertilizer they make, and the fertility
brought on the farm in purchased oil
meal and cottonseed meal, makes the
corn grow large. The crop on the
ground that / saw was enormous. Well
. as fast as a silo becomes empty, they
draw in this dry corn and cut it into
the silo. l took particular pains to ask
about this, and to examine the product
They put about ten pals of water on
after cutting each load into the silo
then add twenty or thirty pals on tor
after the filling is completed. Then
10 the corn keeps perfectly. What | saw
Y was nice and all right. This dry en-
silage is fed at noon, and the
: regular ensilage morning and night
Thus the cows dinner is something
like hay or dry fodder. 1t is quite
) different from the early cut ensilage
Now in theory this may not be
, the best way to feed cows, but this in
stitution feeds from experience, ant
! are governed by facts that they know
? And the cows are fed in the very high
, est manner every day in the year
) They never have any short pasture OF
account of dry weather, nor do they
, suffer from flies. And many mar
) who reads this letter is keeping twenty
! or thirty head of stock only, on farm
? as large as DIR. Fosters, and often