The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1899-01-04
New Forces in Dairying.

Lalely uhlIy-euppiy poOh 'oi into
my hands, and in looking over the up
to date list of dairy supplies found
only one thing which could have been
seen in the dairy room of any farm
house in town forty years ago, and that
was a revolving churn. Fifty years
ago ss good revolving churn as can
be found, now was made by cooper
near my fathers house. Everything
else in the book was modern-all labor
savers, cream-e xtractors, of twenty
makes and of all descriptions. In fact,
darying to-day, so far as it's mechanism
is concerned, is "new force," and in
methods and transportation there is
every possible scheme under the sun
that smacks OF cooperative effort to re-
duce cost of make, handing and trans-
portation, including cold storage and
syndicate methods of selling. On the
farm is the silo, the modern stable
where it is possible for cow to exist
her "appointed time" have every cow
comfort and balanced ration, and not
leave her stall. In the private dairy as
well as in the factory the separator is
found, the refrigerator box, and even
the refrigerating machine, 80 that tenn
peratures may be as perfectly regulated
at small expense as in the great cream
cries. In the dairy everything is mod
ern, so far as its mechanism is con-
cerned.
There has been a campaign of ideas
for the last thirty years. Not only has
inventive skill been active, and made
it possible to far reduce the price of all
dairy goods by cooperative effort and
concentration oflabor, but the scientific
mind and the chemists investigation
have been brought to bear in the solu-
ton of the dairy problem, and it is not
too much to claim that the most impOr-
tant Investigations and the greatest rev.
Citations In physical chemistry have
been made in the dairy and are still be-
ing made; and now many of the most
eminent chemists of the world are de-
voting their energies to dairy investiga-
ton. The list of important discoveries
is large, and is being added to almost
daily, and the scientific literature now
reaches whole libraries. The dairy
also in few years has created a
"press" of its own, and some OF the
brightest and most wide awake journals
in the world are devoted exclusively TO
the dairy, and some OF them have a
circulation that is worldwide, and
through them the dairymen of every
country are in sympathetic touch with
their fellow. dairymen the world over.
What is the matter with the dairy?
Why this complaint everywhere that it
does not pay, and the unrest all over
the Eastern and Western States-the
older dairying sections? While inven-
ton and investigation have put the ed,
vocational and scientific possibilities in
the front rank, only one dairyman in
ten is milking cow in any essential
better than the cows were MIXED forty
years ago, or has accepted these new
inventions or new forces. In other
words, while the dairy knowledge has
been advanced 500 per cent in the last
forty years, the average dairyman has
allowed his cow to stand still, and she
to-day lie the same nondescript, calico
COW, without breeding or line of des-
cent, and she gives the same three
thousand pound yield, and is idle for
five months of the year. To have kept
apace with the progress of investiga-
ton and skill developed and made free
to all for the simple acceptance, the av-
erage cow should now be giving six
thousand pounds of milk each year, and
a full one per cent better in quality. 1t
is now demonstrated that the quality of
the milk is the born gift of the cow and
1t Is the quantity alone that can be in
fuenced by the feed. These facts were
settled by scientific investigation, not
by the farmers guess 30.
That the dairy as managed by the
fnr 20 fn hnh ind n
quirements of the day, and can never
outdistance competition 30 long as it
is left to trudge along in this low aver
age yield, needs no argument to prove.
In New York State the reports of near
ly seven hundred actories-allowing a
liberal estimate for all milk not taken
to the factories at the two ends of the
season-show that the average cow of
that State gives less than three thou
sand pounds of milk yearly. The re-
ports from Ohio do not seem to show
up better average, and these two
States are the Oldest dairy sections of
the United States, and should be far in
the lead in advanced dairying. This
shows that no attention is being paid
by the masses of darymen to the breed
ing of their cows. 1t is not a matter of
special breeds so much as 1t is in a
recognition of individual merit in the
breeding - breeding only from cows
giving rich milk, and in the six-thou'
sand pound class, and using only sires
from lines of cows that have large milk
performances to their credit, and then
feeding and caring for the heller calves
as heifers should be cared for. There
is not a country in the world in which
good milk can be made mere cheaply
than in this country. 1t is not ques.
ton of high or low priced land, but first
of good cow, and then of how much