Oxford Democrat. [volume] (Paris, Me.) 1833-1933, 1903-02-03
The Cow as q Farm Ren0vator.

A Maine dairy farmer, the Hon.
Randall w. Ellis, said at meeting OF
the Dairymen's association of that state
The dairy COW is always at home.
For 365 nights and at least 200 days she
is housed where all her droppings can
be saved. She returns to the soil a
larger per cent of what she eats than any
other living animal. In fact, 80 per cent
of all she eats, except what nature re-
quires to sustain life and keep up the
waste Of the system, is returned to
to the soil; Is per cent in her weddings,
liquid and solid, and "a per cent in the
waste product of her milk. Less than
one per cent goes off in butter fat.
In reckoning the profits of the dairy,
these by-products do not get the credit
due them; in fact, they are scarcely ever
reckoned at all; but when you take into
consideration the depleted condition OF
nearly all our farms, and the urgent need
there is of recuperatiOn, they should be
ranked first in importance, for without
the elements of fertility in the soil our
receipts in dollars and cents would soon
be gone.
Three gallons of skinned milk or but
termilk will make one pound of dressed
pork. The average COW will produce 800
gallons of milk in a year, hence she will
make 100 pounds of pork. The COW
herself, if properly treated, with what
results from the milk fed the pigs, will
make two cords of first-class dressing.
Six cords of such dressing is sufficint to
fertilize an acre for sweet corn If the land
is not too much run out. An acre of
corn will yield on an average $40 worth
of ears and nine tons of silage. A COW
will eat about 60 pounds of silage per
day, hence the tons will feed l-2
cows 200 days. The same amount OF
land sown to oats and peas will yield 2
tons, of which COW will eat IA pounds
per day, hence it will feed l2 cows 200
days, and have 800 pounds to spare.
The same acre of land will produce 3-4
tons of hay, of which the COW will eat 10
pounds per day, thus feeding one COW
200 days and leaving 800 pounds to spare.
The money, $40, received for sweet corn
at the factory will buy sufficient pro-
vender for the four cows, fed as they
have been on coarse fodder. Now you
see that three cows have produced
enough on three acres to keep4 cows POO
days. the average length of our winters.
with 600 pounds to spare, gain OF 80
per cent.
These are the results of actual tests of
the crops raised on our farm in 1901, the
land being all measured and the amounts
ascertained by weighing certain plots,
which were as near an average as pos
sible, and reckoning the whole field by
them you will see that the average OF
the crops was not large, no larger than
the average farmer raises.
One thing which we noticed in particu.
lar was the great difference in the
amount of shrinkage of different crops
in curing. For instance. while oats and
peas lose only two-fifths, clover loses
more than three-tifths. A man not used
to weighing will overestimate clover
crop, while he will underestimate pea
crop, and the latter contains far more
nutritive qualities than the former. A
COW will eat on the average about 10
pounds of clover hay per day, while she
will not eat more than IA pounds of oats
and peas, and will give more milk ON the
latter. We are able to get more COW
feed from an acre of peas and oats than
from an acre of sweet corn with the ears
picked off for the factory and one-half
more than we can from an acre of clover.
For this reason it seems absurd to admit
the oat and pea crop and seed the corn
land directly to clover, as some are re-
In my opinion, it is much more profit
able to raise sweet corn, pick off the ears
and exchange them for protein feeds,
than to plant larger-growing corn and
put it all in the silo. If large growing
variety of yellow corn is planted, about
forty or fifty bushels of ears per acre
would be obtained to pick off and dry,
about three tons extra of silage, 10 offset
the $40 from the factory.
These are no fancy pictures, they are
actual facts backed up by the experience
of lifetime.-Mirror and Farmer.