The Athena press. [volume] (Athena, Umatilla County, Or.) 18??-1942, 1906-06-05
WEALTH FROM COWS.
OVER TWO HUNDRED MILLION
DOLLARS A YEAR REALIZED.
Facts and Figures of Interest to the
Farming and Stock-Raising
People Of the United
States.

did you ever sit down and figure"
said the man with pencil, reports the
New York Sun, "just how big swath
the humble dairy COW cuts in the world.
or, more properly speaking, in this
country? Ifyou haven't, you will doubt
less be surprised to know that she adds
S205, ,000,0 900 year to our wealth.
There are about 100000 dairy
cows in the United States, which are
yielding about 1,375000, 900 pounds Of
butter a year. At is cents pound this
foots up over 100000, 900.
"The average annual yield Of butter
to the COW is 125 pounds, and II the farm
er knew how to feed his cattle properly
he could bring this average to 300
pounds, or about the cost OF the COW in
the first place.
Most farmers who have never in
vestigated or studied the matter imag-
inc that all that is necessary to feed
COW Is about what he thinks she ought
to have. The fact is that every COW
must first have enough food for body
maintenance, then whatever she gets
over and above that goes into milk or
meat-which depends upon the breed.
IF COW Is bred along dairy lines
that Is, II her sire is full-blooded dairy
animal-she will not have the usual nat
ural tendency to convert into meat her
excess of feed, but will turn 1t out in
milk. II she is fed from the time she
drops her calf, is regularly milked and
made comfortable, quiet and contented,
the more feed she gets the more milk
she gives. There's good bit In keep
ing any animal contented and happy, es-
pecially If she is good mixer
Some may think that such an enor-
nous yield of butter as would result
from proper feeding of all these COWS
would bring ruin to the industry. This
would happen only where feed is ex-
pensive, but the real result would be that
American butter would find big market
In Europe, where we could undersell all
home competition.
For instance, in Denmark 1t costs, In
round numbers, about twice what 1t does
in the northwest to produce butter. In
Germany the cost is but little less than in
Denmark, and so 1t runs through all the
countries that offer us a market.
I'm fact there is lot Of butter now
being exported by the big creameries,
and they find 1t easy to average 80 or 35
@.'-s..- @- end. Theprice abroad at pres
ent prohibits butter from general use,
but with production double what we
now have we could afford to offer II
abroad at figure that would still give
us plenty of margin.
1T will take good many years,
though, to bring the average up to even
200 pounds to the COW, since much Of
the, stock is poor and proper feeding is
an idea that the dairy associations find
1t difficult to propagate. Present prices
are satisfactory, however, and the good
COW, one that is properly managed, will
net its owner from $40 to $40 a year.
"The butter business is rapidly drift
ing into the hands of the big creamery
companies, Of which there are large
number, especially In the west and
northwest They have not only been
raising the standard OF butter, but they
have been gradually putting up the
price.
They have stations scattered all over
the country, easy OF access to the farmer.
The owner of dairy herd buys a patent
separator that turns out the butter fat.
and the ereameries pay him maximum
OF % cents a pound for this. The skim
milk he feeds to his pigs and every
month the creamery's little check for
about $3.50 or three dollars COW comes
In very handy"
CHlLDREN'S SMALL DECElTS
Sions OF nanravitv In Little Ones