The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1902-06-17
The Dairy.
DAIRY FOB THE FARM HoME-WHAT
HAS BEEN YOUR EXPERIENCE3

A4OLAC III DoA1Jg Wv
it to mean the average home, where
COWS are kept to supply milk and but
ter for the farmers family, I venture
to give the Pool our experience. 1 say
Hour" because wife and 1 work togeth-
er in the attention given to the cows.
I will give experience for last year,
as we have a record of the sales for
that year; but will first tell something
of how we managed prior to the begin
ming of last-year.
When we we're married, nine years
ego, we had two common scrub cows,
and these supplied us with milk and
butter, by managing so as to keep one
milking all the time, and we had but
little to spare. We then had a family
of five; three others besides wife and
!. Two years later we decided, along
with other improvements we were try
ing to make, to improve our stock. So
we began to breed our common COWS
to a full blood Jersey bull, and began
to give more attention to feeding. We
saved all the heifer calves (and, by the
way, we only got three in seven years.,
our purpose being to raise and keep
two good cows, and thereby assure our
selves plenty of milk and butter the
year around. When we began milk
ing u first Jersey heifer four years
ago, and having learned how to feed,
we began to have more butter than we
could use, and commenced selling at
Is cents per pound. Two years ago
our second heifer came into milk and
our sales increased. The demand for
our butter got better, but the price re-
manned the same. Well, we came into
last year with our first heifer with a
calf two months old, our second heifer,
a stripper, to come in fresh the mid
die of April; our third heifer, just
with calf, to come in fresh first of Oc-
tober. We at this time decided to have
more for our butter, and acting on the
advice of Prof. Massey, we went to
some of the best families of our town
and asked for their butter trade, prom
ising to deliver it twice a week at 1772
cents per pound, and always to be a
gilt edged article. This arrangement
was readily assented to; though only
having a limited amount for sale the.
first four months of the year, having
a family of seven and only milking one
cow three months of the time. But
when second cow came in we read
lily found customers at same price, to
take all we could spare, and more, too,
if we had let them have it. When our
third heifer came in our butter was
pretty well advertised, and we asked
for 20 cents per pound and got it, and
are getting that for this year. Now
wife kept a record of butter sales by
the week, and we can tell to a cent
what we sold any one week throughout
the year, our butter sales for the n
tire year being $79.67; buttermilk, IS
cents; two calves So, making a total of
$SS.42, from an average milking of
two COWS through the year, over and
above supplying a family of seven with
butter, and wife says that we used on
an average of five pounds per week
from May 1st to November LIST, and
about three pounds per week the other
months of the year, and besides this
we kept four pigs in a thriving condi-
ton on the skimmilk, except a few
months at first of the year when we
were milking only one COW; but all
through the summer and early fall
months we did not feed any other feed,
although they were running in a small
pasture set with Japan clover. We
finished them off with corn, and not
much at that, and they melted us 500
pounds of meat. Nor is this all. We
have more and better manure, because
of u better feeding and housing.
And again, our butter customers are
continually after us to bring them
eggs, fruit, vegetables, potatoes, ETC.,
when we come into town with their
butter, and these things more than pay
expense of stopping the pillow to carry
the butter to market, which is only
two and a half miles from us. So, on
the whole, we think our COWS pay us
pretty well. Now I will tell briefly as
L can our treatment. First, we have
good weather-boarded stables, with
plenty of room; a stable for each COW
1OX12, that the COWS go into every
night in the year and all rainy days.