The Kennewick courier. [volume] (Kennewick, Wash.) 1905-1914, 1912-10-18
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soon had 10 pounds and took it to
town to sell when we were told they
did not buy ranch butter. This
was certainly discouraging, but we
took the butter home and were
about to decide to let the calves
have the milk when | happened to
visit a lumber camp and heard the
manager complaining about the but
ter they were using. I told him I
would bring him some of our butter
and if he did not like it it would
not cost him a cent. After that he
took all we had to sell and from
that time on we never had any
trouble selling our butter, and when
we quit making butter, three years
ago, we were making about 600
pounds month.
In building up dairy herd want
to impress upon every one the i'm
portance of thoroughbred sire, the
best one can afford to buy.
1t was our experience that the
first cross increased the milk, both
in quantity and quality. That is,
where the mothers milk would test
b per cent the daughters would
test 4 and a per cent.
The only way to build up dairy
herd is to keep a frst-class sire and
a Babcock tester, and weigh and
test the milk from each COW. AS
an illustration: A neighbor came
into my barn this spring and offered
$75 for small Jersey cow that had
just had her second calf. Her milk
had been weighed twice a month
the year before, but the weights had
not been figured up, so we got the
weight book and he helped me add
up the amount, when we found she
had produced $50 worth of butter
fat. 1t is needless to say the offer
was refused.
This creamery paid me last year
for butterfat, an average of $50 for
each COW MIXED. I fed each COW
an average of six pounds of ground
barley for six months and two and
one-half tons of alfalfa hay. Fig
uring the barley at 81. 25 per hun
dred weight and the hay at 81 a
ton, as this was what | paid for
what I bought, and six months
pasture at $50 a month, would
make total of $40 for feed for each
COW, leaving a net profit of $50 per
COW for butterfat. Allowing the
skim milk and manure to pay for
the labor, still leaves the increase in
the herd to the credit of the COW.
If we add the profit on each cow to
the hay she consumed, we find she
paid us just $27 a ton for all she
ate. 1 happen to know that one of
my neighbors, after paying $165
to have his hay baled and put on
board cars, received just $65, or in
other words, if he had let bis hay
rot he would have been 500 better
off. Another received SO cents as
returns for full carload; of course
these are exceptional cases, bnt it
certainly illustrates the uncertainty
of what we are going to receive when
we have to ship our produce out of
the valley.
If all the COWS in my herd had
produced as much butterfat as the
best one did, the profit would have
been so per cent greater, so there is
still plenty of room for improve
ment.
AS a matter of fact the butterfat
is lust about one half what the dairy
COW should be credited with. AS a
practical illustration of this l will
state that, on the first farm we bot
in the valley, there were 80 acres
that had been summer fallowed the
wear before, which we put in oats
that yielded so bushels per acre
Eight years later we had the same
piece in oats again and got yield
of practically 100 bushels per acre
DESPITE the fact that we had taker
a crop off the land every year. This
would have been impossible with
out the help of the dairy COW, ano
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