The Greeley tribune., 1911-09-14

lege and two daughters through a |
college course and this from a rocky
farm where they pastured only four
months a year and cut only a ton
of hay TO an acre and fed hay eight
months a year. So it looks to me
like debatable question whether
or not that old man was right or
wrong in his statements. He said
to me the trouble with your country
is you have no good cows here. Cows
that make II to 10 pounds of butter
week are as scarce as hens teeth
and yet in the dairy country cows
that make $50 pounds of butter in
eight months are very common If
what We read is true. That some
kind OF stock will be introduced
here to use up the hay we will soon
grow is beyond question. If some
one who has the means would put
in a car OF first class cows here and
keep accurate account it would dem
onstrate whether this is dairy
country or not. Some say to hire
it all done it will not pay. How
many farms will pay for a term of
five years and hire all the work
done? Or how many business firms
could stand up and have owner do
nothing and hire it all done, and
keep rs family up?
That is false proposition. In
about every business the owner
must work to make even a living
unless he be a man of large means.
While a dairy means early hours it
need not mean late hours and while
! il may be as MIR. Clark says, that
particular man he mentions may
have worked himself to death. We
all know men who did that in every
walk of life. | doubt If the life in
surance agents ask any more prem
ium on dairy men than in other
walks of life still in employments
considered hazardous which call for
high premiums on life insurance.
There are plenty who will undertake
that work and so if dairying was
introduced here men would readily
be found to do the work. For my
self | could never milk 10 or 10
cows twice day as my wrists give
out on about three, but had | kept
| II up they might have outgrown il.
But | find that men who grew up in
dairy generally prefer that work.
w nave IL SOuu NltdhltlN htiS
but they should have two or three
times as many COWS as the product
is in good demand. The great
trouble now is most of the cows
here are five or six pound cows and
would not pay for their feed in any
country. The only test would be to
have good butter COWS, not milk
cows Dairy men tell me a real COW
\. hnE
three generations. Then it is like
beef breeds, you cant run it out by
one bad cross. 1t seems this ques-
tion is worth careful consideration
by The people of this community as
the time for some radical change in
our farming methods seems TO be
coming much more apparent as the
years go by. Sheep feeding, owing
to certain conditions, has not been
profitable for the last few years but
that will likely work around so
quite number will be fed here be-
fore long. But We need some per-
mauent method to use up our hay
and increase the fertility of our soil
and it is up to us to determine what
that shall be. I did not start out
to write an article on stock feeding,
Only stdte lne results III iCcN SAi
potatoes and we naturally predict
the future on the experience of the
past and so | would say save your
seed ara plant as usual for chances
are we will have an average crop
another year and it might be an
extra crop as it seems law OF
nature that one extreme often fol-
lows another.
Regarding the stock business
every one knows that 1t is hobby
Of mine so will expect it. But l
have seen this worked out in two
states and so / can see it must come
here If we are to come to our own,
as they say. 1t may not come Whlie
the old settler lives but the coming
gcueration will solve it. God never
made this grand country to so 10
the dogs, but it. like all the old
states, must have its ups and downs
and grow out of it and the years VIII
come when these acres will yiela
even more abundantly than they
ever have in our day.
Yours very truly,
w. II. MCCLELLAN,