Oxford Democrat. [volume] (Paris, Me.) 1833-1933, 1898-09-13
PROFIT FROM KEEPING COWS.

Ii has been hard work for farmers
who have relied on the dairy to Aqare
profit on COWS ut the low prices they
have been obliged to accept for milk and
other dairy products. To many II has
seemed as II they were only getting
market value for the feed given to their
COWS and doing good deal Of extra
work to get even as much as this. Yet
even thus the dairy has probably paid as
well as any ything else. II the products
of the farm had all or even the larger
part OF them been sold, there must have
been such depreciation Of soil fertility
as TO make the farm less valuable every
year. On the other hand, by keeping
cows and using all the manure they
make, adding some mineral fertilizers
which will restore what the milk sold
has taken from the soil, the farm may
be kept growing richer all the time.
Where cows are largely kept, much corn
and clover will be grown, and this means
n greater amount Of bsrnyard msnure,
besides the fertilizing effect from clover
roots in the coil, both while growing
and la their decay.
But the best opportunity for making
money by keeping cows will be missed
unless by purchase Of improved AMI
mails, and by grading up with crosses
from the best dairy stock the herd Is
constantly improved. This will very
quickly begin TO pay In the increased
value Of the herd. 1t will pay still bet
ter when the heifer calves become cows
and increase the butter and milk yield.
Year by year the farmer may not seem
TO be making any money. II will take
all he earns to pay the running expenses
Of the farm. But IL its productiveness
Is all the time increasing, and above all,
IL the farm stock Il doubling or quad
rupling in value, IL will be found that
the farmers capital has increased in the
best possible way to enable him to spend
his later years In the comfort that q life
Of hard work ought always to earn.
By always grading up and breeding to
the best stock In his line that he can find,
IL Is possible to double the value Of
herd OF cows within eight or ten years.
BY this time also, the increased product
OF these better bred cows will enable the
farmer to make other needed improve
ments on the farm ss well ss to buy
hiotS Va iSs> tdtu w icSu thchh Az tuis
way \ much greater variety Of feed can
be protitsbly given, and the value OF the
manure pile be correspondingly incress-
ed. No one who keeps n dairy
should be satisfied until he has been able
TO raise cows on the farm that will give
him n profit, even II all the feed for them
were purchased st market rates. Then
the farmer will still grow, probably, rs
much corn and clover as he ever did, for
these are not exhaustive crops. What
he will buy will be whest bran aud mid
dlings, linseed and cottonseed meal, and,
when they are cheap enough, some oats.
All Of these make the manure pile rich,
and when the farmer has cows that will
warrant buying these feeds for them, he
will no longer need TO purchase CON-
mercisl fertilizers, that were necessary
while he relied wholly on his own farm
to supply feed for his cows, and vet was
always selling their milk or Its products.
The making OF butter. however, takes
nothing from the land II the skim-mil
Is fed out 10 stock on the farm, and the
manure from II saved. - American
Cultivator.