The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1898-08-10
AGRICULTURAL,
One Cow.

ers of the WATCHMAN keep only one
COW, and such get scant attention in
the agricultural papers. The writer
has had a varied experience in dairy
ing. A long time we kept eight to ten
cows, made butter for private custom
ers in cities, and catered to their taste.
Then we sent our milk to creamery.
Then we kept twenty cows and sold
the milk to a milkman. This season
we have just one little mountain COW,
brought up in the woods, gets home
sick when We put her in pasture, is
all right when hitched by rope in the
woods. For my own part l enjoy the
one COW dairy, for the children can
take all the care of her, and it is such
a relief to not have to get up at half
past three to four o'clock A. NJ. TO milk
q lot of cows. Our COW is an odd look
ing creature, small with a big head
and long horns, but she gives milk
enough to keep family of eight in
sweet and sour milk and butter, and
with about five pounds of meal and
bran mixed, she lives in the woods
tied to trees with long rope. We
have no ice, and the weather is hot,
but we cool the milk in fresh water
from the well, then set it on the out
door cellar bottom. The cream is
skinned eff, ripened, and churned in
small tin pail with an egg beaterl
That is my wife's invention, and it
seems to work first rate, though the
children grumble sometimes at the job.
One of the worst parts of the ordinary
one COW diaries is that pasture often
has to be hired at distance, and then
an irresponsible small boy hired to
drive her TO and from the pasture.
The pasture may be crowded, the feed
short, and then the owner very likely
has no sweet corn or other succulent
feed growing and ready to give her.
All these things are against her pay
ing well, and we believe that the best
way to keep one COW is to have her
come in in the fall. Then she will go
dry when milk is the lowest; she can
be turned off in some good pasture and
kept through the midsummer and is
ready TO give milk when it is the high
est. The great need is for the keeper
of one COW to remember that the prin-
ciples of keeping one cow are the same
as for the keeping of dozen, and it is
as needful for the owner of one COW to
know how TO care for her rightly as it
is for the large owner. If there are
children WHO can be trained to take the
proper care of the cow, that saves the
time of a man, but there are few child
rem brought up in towns and villages
that know much about cows. The
farm trained child has not few advau-
tages.
Is it better to keep cow than to
buy milk? No general answer can be
given. Each one must figure it out for
himself. The writer's family just
could not get along without cow
Her pasturing costs nothing as piece
of woodland comes up back of the barn
for which the owner has no use. But
if we had to pay $40 for summering
her, it might turn the profit to loss.
But if possible, the one COW owner
should keep his cow in large stall
days and in a small yard nights, feed
her with green forage in warm wealth
err, and thus save all the loss of pastur-
age, poor feed, travel and worry. The
secret of success with COWS is to keep
them comfortable, give them what
they like to eat, keep the flies from tor
menting them all of the time, give
plenty of good water. The water for
the COW should be just as pure as the
water for the house, for the milk con-
tains large part of the water which
the cow drinks. If the COW drinks bad
water, she will give bad milk, and it is
not without good reason that city
boards of health try to find where the
cows drink that supply the city. Go to
the water works of city like Boston
and see how much pains they take to
have pure water supply. Every
brook which flows into the reservoirs
is watched, the waters often tested for
impurities, and the greatest care exer-
cised as to drainage. Happy is that
city which has pure water supply like
living springs or artesian wells. If
you buy milk of milkman and do not
know where his COWS drink, well you
might try to find out. But that is one
advantage of keeping your own COW,
you can give her pure water to drink.
If you have half an acre of rich land
or can manure your land heavily, you
can grow an immense amount of green
feed on it for the COW. 1t would be a
good plan to SOW it all to winter rye
and wheat in the fall Or amman If