The Yale expositor., 1899-04-07
DAIRY AND POULTRY.
INTERESTING CHAPTERS FOR
OUR RURAL READERS.
How Successful Farmers Operate This
Department of the Farm-A Few
Hints as to the Care of Live Stock
and Poultry.
paIrylng In New England.

DaIrying In New England.
The annual meeting OF Connecticut
dairymen held at Hartford recently
means discouraged with the outlook
for the dairy and live stock interests
OF their state. From the Rural New
Yorker we clip the following notes OF
the meeting:
Some dairymen find an excellent
market for ice cream-the pure cream
favored and frozen. Mr.. Manchester
OF w. Winsted, says that this ice cream
trade pays much better than butter
making. Every package or ticket that
leaves the Manchester farm bears the
word Inspected" which means that
the herd and premises have been pro-
nounced free from disease.
Curious Change.-Thus we find
curious change going on. Twenty
years ago, it was thought that the live
stock business in New England would
be of small Importance The silo has
provided cheap winter roughage, and
has so increased the amount of hay in
local markets that it is better to feed
1t at home. The New England hill
sides still give the best pasturage on
the continent. Thus, in spite of all
the wise prophets, New England is
swinging back to live stock again.
Some western sheep and steers are fed.
but the trouble Is to sell them to good
advantage. There is hardly a large
slaughterhouse left in New England,
for the western dressed beef has mo-
nopolized the market. One man who
Is running a milk dairy OF Holstein
cows near New Haven, said that most
OF his old cows were sold to the Jews.
But for this demand for cheap beef, he
said it would be hard to find customers
for the cows.
How Fed.-The silo is very popular
in Connecticut. The lower part of the
Connecticut River Valley was always
noted for its crops of corn. The In
dams who lived there always had a
surplus to sell. Ensilage is the stan
dard roughage on most OF the paying
dairy farms. One thing about ensil-
age is that 1t Is "healthful." You can
safely feed with 1t almost any grain
that the COW likes. This cannot al
ways be done with dry fodder. which
is usually constipating. Very little
corn meal is bought. Mr.. Clemence,
who owns a very profitable dairy farm
in Massachusetts, feeds bran and oil
meal for grain. Most of the ensilage
men feed more or less cotton-seed
meal. Mr.. Il. Manchester told me he
had found that COWS "clean" better
after calving when cotton-seed meal
Is fed. Too much cotton-seed meal
might cause abortion. Mr.. Manches-
ter says that he has had experience
with cows that were bloated or
drunk" from eating apples. He cures
this by feeding at once about three
pounds of corn meal, which seems to
prevent or stop the fermentation.
These Connecticut Yankees were al
ways shrewd buyers and feeders. Some
of the best of them now figure the
value of grain by the amount Of pro-
TEN it contains. Their argument is
that ensilage and other home folders
will supply all the fats and fat-form-
ers that the COW needs. The chief
thing to buy is the muscle-making
food. So, with due allowance for the
effect of various foods on the cows
system, they buy the grains that give
them most muscle-makers for a dollar.
. Another wrinkle is to feed two ra-
tions. One is a general well-balanced
ration for all the cows The other is
a stronger mixture of such foods as
bran, cotton-seed meal and linseed. All
the COWS get a fair mess OF the first,
and the heaviest mixers get, in addi-
ton, more or less of the last in pro-
portion to the amount of milk they
give. The argument for this is that
the extra milk requires extra protein.
1t is cheaper to give 1t only to those
cows that need It, and there is no use
in giving them too much of the other
elements. The western man may say
that this would not pay him, but 1t
pays in Connecticut. New England
farmers are saving themselves by saw
ing wastes.