The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1899-01-01
UTAH'S DAIRY INTERESTS.
Wonderful Development of This Industry During the Past
Few Years.
BY PROF. F. B. LINFIELD,
Utah Agricultural Experiment Station.


of the work done by the dairy depart
ment of the experiment station and
the college will show its extent and
, practicablenesS.
The important point in all expert
mental work is the results, but these
results are valuable only as they are
accurate and reliable. Into such work
| time enters as an important factor. In
| most lines of work, at least one year
is necessary, and in many, several
years of observation are required be-
fore it would be wise to publish re-
suits. Live stock experiments, in par
1 ticular, are of this character. Just a
I few days ago I was examining two of
! the heiferS raised on the farm, which
are milking for their first season. L
have been a very interested observer of
! their growth for the past three years
or more, as they are the beginning of
results in our observations on the i'm
provement of the station dairy herd
purchased in 1894. 1t was with mingled
feelings of pride and satisfaction that
l examined those two young cows.
How quiet and gentle they were! They
would come right UP to a person and
ask for a careSS-reguiar pets, While
their mothers required a great deal Of
coaxing to permit a hand to be laid
upon them. Then their records are in
every way creditable. One of them
has averaged twenty-five pounds of
butter fat a month for seven months,
and the other has given twenty pounds
per month for four months. Either
record would raise them to the 200
pound mark in one year-a good start
for a 2-year-old. The beginning of re-
suits. There are many more young
heifers growing up and we are looking
forward TO quite an accumulation Of
interesting and valuable data.
Of hot Wa ora hc0
we are too lazy to be otherwise, but
many are as they are because they
have never had chance to be othbr-
wise. There are many COWS in the
country to which the latter proposition
would apply. l always believe in Civ
ing a COW or a. man a chance to speak
fer themselves. For three years we
had been trying to develop the latent
qualities of one of our cows, but she
did not seem to have any. s $50 pounds
of butter fat a year appeared to be
the limit Of her good works. There
was no money in such a COW and so we
turned her into Christmas beef. Here
She made a very creditable showing,
indeed. Evidently, she had previously
missed her calling.
PROBLEMS TO BE SOLVED.
I said above that the results from an
experiment were the important part;
they determine it's value. and 50. in the
same sense, the results from COW de-
termines her value. The results, how
ever, depend upon that which the COW
has had to make them out of. Some
people say that lucern is the best feed
fer COW; others think that corn fOd-
der and eF1silage are the things, while
others want a mixture. Some say that
it does not pay to feed grain to cows;
others say there is big money in it,
Some say that roots are a good thing
for COWS; others say they are an ex-
pensive luxury. Some insist that you
should feed a balanced ration; others !
ask what il is. What the cows say on |
these points is what we have been
looking into.
In the eastern states the pasture !
problem is to find the number of acres !
of land that will support COW; with |
Us, it is how many COWS il will take to |
eat the pasture that will grow on one
acre. We are working at il. (See also !
the eighth annual report of the expert
ment station.)
Calves are baby COWS. fear, how
ever, that if the human baby was fed /
as carelessly as the bovine baby, we
would keep very few of them. Natures
methods are nearly always good in
their results, but frequently very ex-
trava giant. Calves raised on butter fat /
expensive Injuries There is surely
some more economic, yet equally sue
cessful method. We are trying to find
it out.
A pig in a dairy does not accord with
our ideas of propriety, and yet pig
at 4 TO AZ cents per pound, live weight.
is a very respectable gentleman Phil
Armour, though a millionaire, extends
the hand to thousands of them every
year. and even the son of Pachu Nor
ris sometime ago abandoned literature
that he might devote his time to ca
tering to the public demand for the
oorker. 1 do not know of any animal
which will take as much out of skim
milk, buttermilk and whey as will the
hos, if his master will only serve it up
to him Alright. We have been studying
the serving process for the past four
years. and in bulletin No. 81 we have
to say on our findings. Send
Tor it, 1t is a report of progress; we
are yet gathering evidence.