The Sauk Centre herald. (Sauk Centre, Stearns County, Minn.) 1886-current, 1927-01-20
Lost Art OF Cow Calling Revive

The all but vanished art of
cow calling is being revived in In
diana. Before an audience of more
than two hundred critical dirt
farmers, the four premier COW call
ers of Owen county met in a voice
to voice conflict to decide, once and
for all, who was champion.
The honor went to Otis Kinney,
one of the leading dairymen of
that section, and he was awarded
a Swiss cow bell, presented to him
by the Blue Valley Creamery In
stitute of Chicago. The Institute
seeks ito promote better dairying
and is fostering these unique cow
calling contests to- arouse farmer
interest.
The contest at Spencer, Indiana,
was staged as feature of a two
day short course in agriculture, put
on by the Owen County Farm Bur-
eau, the Spencer Commercial Club
and the Extension Department of
Purdue University. The first event,
open to anyone who thought he
could make cow come, brought
forth nineteen entrants, eleven of
whom were women. The judges,
instructed to choose the winners
on the basis of applause, and ''the
probable appeal that the calling
would make upon the cow as rep
resented by the Judges" narrowed
the choice down to four, two men
and two women, and the finals were
called off at the banquet which
closed the session.
In calling cows, as in everything
else, the ladies have their own
technique. The two gentlemen
callers relied almost solely on vol
ume of noise they could muster.
But the ladies, not so we'll equipped
for long distance projection, fell
back on personality stuff" and
called each roaming COW by name.
Unlike pig calling, which is al
most as Indigenous to each sec
ton as it's local dialect, COW call
ing is more or less universal. Cows
from Maine to the Mississippi, at
least, came ambling amiably home
to the Turing call of "So-o-o-o-o-
Calf" or the more intimate $500
oo-oo-ook, Soo-oo-oo-oo-oo k" which
can be heard across two counties.
"About everything on the Ameri-
can Farm has changed in the last
twenty-five years. said G. M.
Long, Chief of the Farm Service
of the Blue Valley Creamery In
stitute, in making the presentation
of the prize. calling the cows is
about the only thing we do just as
our dads did. And even that is
almost vanished art. In the old
days the cattle ranged over the
hills and the farmer or one of his
family had to take the dog and go
out and herd them in. Today the
open country is practically all
fenced, and the cows are usually
waiting at the barns when farm
er comes to milk them. Today it
is more important what and how
you feed the COW than how you
call her"
The Owen County farm school
was staged by the farmers them
selves as a step toward develop
ing this section into a dairy coun-
try. The Blue Valley Creamery
Institute recently organized a
Prosperity Cow Club in this sec
ton, to study the relation of feed
and. production in the individual
COW, so the dairyman can tell which
of his cows is paying her keep and
which cows are "Boarders,"' cost
ing more to feed than they return
in butterfat production.
The farm school brought in more
than 400 farm men and women
from radius of twenty miles. The
farmer students studied the feed
ing and breeding of dairy cattle
and poultry and cows, calves and
chickens were brought right into
the class room for demonstration.