The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1898-07-12
BREEDING AND FEEDING THE
BUTTER cow.

feed for quality, y meaning in the dairy.
This, / am sure, as I have frequently
said, is the fundamental principle i'm
the management Of dairy stock. Our
friends position ia this, and 7 am sure
he is right: Select your COWS from the
best milking strain you car command,
breed them to a sire known to have
come Of q high producing butter fam
lily. For instance, 60 make the matter
more practical and matter of fact: The
cattle club bull, Sheldon OF st. Lam
bert, No. 1881 (svery Jersey breeder
knows the pedigree Eines), has ten
daughters to<his credit, raised since
brought to Maine a few years ago, that
have made 400 pounds of butter or
over i'm twelve months. The last one
added 60 his list last winter gave 8 $50
pounds Of milk in 1897, and last Janu,
airy made 90 pounds Of butter in one
week. This bull stands at compare
lively low service. He ia an animal
of great individuality and prepotency
the above in evidence. Every farmer
who breeds his best COWS to the Shell
don Of st. Lambert-they may be found
scattered all through the dairy districts
of the country-is certainly breeding
for quality and Improvement. IL our
farmers would exercise q little more
dairy common nj the next decade
would chronicle the 400 pound butter
COWS as plenty as the 300 ones are now.
How about feeding. Along in the
eighties I sold a neighbor a heifer just
come into milk with her first calf. He
took Der home, and the second week i'm
April churned twelve pounds and four
ounces Of butter from q weeks milk.
The dam had tested seventeen pounds
and six and one half ounces i'm one
week, 20 ] was not surprised at the
heifer's performance. But the point Ia
Co come. This heifer's second calf, q.
heller, was presented TO the daughter
Of a wealthy landowner who kept quite
a dairy. Great things, Of course, were
expected Of the young thing when che
should become O cow. She had one
two, three calvesS with the disappoint-
ing report that she was the poorest
COW in the whole lot. The neighbor
who raised her bantered the owner and
bought the heighbor back for q song.
One year ago, with her next calf
weaned. she made two pounds and
two ounces of butter from one days
milk, and fourteen pounds and nine
ounces of butter in days. Anew
days ego the owner of this COW re.
marked that If this COW was the
Goorest one In the lot he would like to
own the best one." The application of
the ex1 ia this instance is that the
breeding was all right, but the care
and feeding all wrong.
And the above but verihes the
proverb that "the breed ia in the
mouth" Breeding and feeding surely
go together. There is more good,
sound, common business sense called
for to make successful dairymen than
in most anyspther farming operation.
Let me give another instance-I'm
given GO stating facts, you'll say, per
haps. WE'LL facts are worth more than
theory, anyhow. A few years ago.
when the Babcock test first can0e
around, the Secretary Of the Maine
Board of Agriculture engaged q mt n
Co go around In the ruraltoWns when
the board held institutes and test the
milk the farmers invited TO bring
in. At one of these meetings an eccen
trio genius, o good farmer, by the way,
became nightly interested when one
of his two samples Of milk brought to
the meeting tested Ave per cent. butter
fat, and the other but three per cent.
When the matter was explained TO
him that five per cent. milk meant
about five and n half pounds Of but
ter 60 the hundred pounds of milk, and
three per cent only q trihe owe three
pounds, he thrust his hands into his
trousers pockets and, looking at the
Bahcock machine with q twinkle in
his eve, broke out: "a mighty queer
bird, you bal Aud perhaps this Is all
90. but I'll be goldarned il I'll believe
that our pet COW is q plat uey poor as
you seem TO make her outl But say"
turning TO the operator OF the test,
you come over to my house and tell
Jim how the thing is done, and leave
the machine with him, can't yer7 Jim
will understand the thing quicker'n
scat. I'm Just so much interested that
If I'm keeping five or six COWS that
aren't paying their way, as this thing
seems Co show to-day, | want TO know
it, and that right off
The bluff OLD farmer and his son own
q Babcock tester nov. That circum-
stance occasiened the eale of five COWS
out of the herd Of twenty, and the pro-
ducing capacity Of the herd TO day is
twenty per cent higher than six years
ago. / think the point lis clear.-L. H.
Abbott, in Farm and FIreslde.