THE MILK MACHINE
In opening the year 1898 I was faced by a larger business proposition
than I had originally planned. When I undertook the experiment of a
factory farm, I placed the limit of capital to be invested at about
$60,000. Now I found that I had exceeded that amount by a good many
thousand dollars, and I knew that the end was not yet. The factory was
not complete, and it would be several years before it would be at its
best in output. While it had cost me more than was originally
contemplated, and while there was yet more money to be spent, there was
still no reason for discouragement. Indeed, I felt so certain of
ultimate profits that I was ready to put as much into it as could
possibly be used to advantage.
The original plan was for a soiling farm on which I could milk thirty
cows, fatten two hundred hogs, feed a thousand hens, and wait for
thirty-five hundred fruit trees to come to a profitable age. With this
in view, I set apart forty acres of high, dry land, for the
feeding-grounds, twenty acres of which was devoted to the cows; and I
now found that this twenty-acre lot would provide an ample exercise
field for twice that number. It was in grass (timothy, red-top, and blue
grass), and the cows nibbled persistently during the short hours each
day when they were permitted to be on it; but it was never reckoned as
part of their ration. The sod was kept in good condition and the field
free from weeds, by the use of the mowing-machine, set high, every ten
or twenty days, according to the season. Following the mower, we use a
spring-tooth rake which bunched the weeds and gathered or broke up the
droppings; and everything the rake caught was carted to the manure vats.
Our big Holsteins do not suffer from close quarters, so far as I am able
to judge, neither do they take on fat. From thirty minutes to three
hours (depending on the weather), is all the outing they get each day;
but this seems sufficient for their needs. The well-ventilated stable
with its moderate temperature suits the sedentary nature of these milk
machines, and I am satisfied with the results. I cannot, of course,
speak with authority of the comparative merits of soiling _versus_
grazing, for I have had no experience in the latter; but in theory
soiling appeals to me, and in practice it satisfies me.
When I found I could keep more cows on the land set apart for them, I
built another cow stable for the dry cows and the heifers, and added
four stalls to my milk stable by turning each of the hospital wards into
two stalls.
The ten heifers which I reserved in the spring of 1896 were now nearly
two years old. They were expected to "come in" in the early autumn, when
they would supplement the older herd. The cows purchased in 1895 were
now five years old, and quite equal to the large demand which we made
upon them. They had grown to be enormous creatures, from thirteen
hundred to fourteen hundred pounds in weight, and they were proving
their excellence as milk producers by yielding an average of forty
pounds a day. We had, and still have, one remarkable milker, who thinks
nothing of yielding seventy pounds when fresh, and who doesn't fall
below twenty-five pounds when we are forced to dry her off. I have no
doubt that she would be a successful candidate for advanced registration
if we put her to the test. For ten months in each year these cows give
such quantities of milk as would surprise a man not acquainted with this
noble Dutch family. My five common cows were good of their kind, but
they were not in the class with the Holsteins. They were not "robber"
cows, for they fully earned their food; but there was no great profit in
them. To be sure, they did not eat more than two-thirds as much as the
Holsteins; but that fact did not stand to their credit, for the basic
principle of factory farming is to consume as much raw material as
possible and to turn out its equivalent in finished product. The common
cows consumed only two-thirds as much raw material as the Holsteins,
and turned out rather less than two-thirds of their product, while they
occupied an equal amount of floor space; consequently they had to give
place to more competent machines. They were to be sold during the
season.
Why dairymen can be found who will pay $50 apiece for cows like those I
had for sale (better, indeed, than the average), is beyond my method of
reckoning values. Twice $50 will buy a young cow bred for milk, and she
would prove both bread and milk to the purchaser in most cases. The
question of food should settle itself for the dairyman as it does for
the factory farmer. The more food consumed, the better for each, if the
ratio of milk be the same.
My Holsteins are great feeders; more than 2 tons of grain, 2-1/2 tons of
hay, and 4 or 5 tons of corn fodder, in addition to a ton of roots or
succulent vegetables, pass through their great mouths each year. The hay
is nearly equally divided between timothy, oat hay, and alfalfa; and
when I began to figure the gross amount that would be required for my 50
Holstein gourmands, I saw that the widow's farm had been purchased none
too quickly. To provide 100 tons of grain, 125 tons of hay, and 200 or
300 tons of corn fodder for the cows alone, was no slight matter; but I
felt prepared to furnish this amount of raw material to be transmuted
into golden butter. The Four Oaks butter had made a good reputation, and
the four oak leaves stamped on each mould was a sufficient guarantee of
excellence. My city grocer urged a larger product, and I felt safe in
promising it; at the same time, I held him up for a slight advance in
price. Heretofore it had netted me 32 cents a pound, but from January 1,
1898, I was to have 33-1/3 cents for each pound delivered at the station
at Exeter, I agreeing to furnish at least 50 pounds a day, six days in a
week.
This was not always easily done during the first eight months of that
year, and I will confess to buying 640 pounds to eke out the supply for
the colony; but after the young heifers came in, there was no trouble,
and the purchased butter was more than made up to our local grocer.
It will be more satisfactory to deal with dairy matters in lump sums
from now on. The contract with the city grocer still holds, and, though
he often urges me to increase my herd, I still limit the supply to 300
pounds a week,--sometimes a little more, but rarely less. I believe that
38 to 44 cows in full flow of milk will make the best balance in my
factory; and a well-balanced factory is what I am after.
I am told that animals are not machines, and that they cannot be run as
such. My animals are; and I run them as I would a shop. There is no
sentiment in my management. If a cow or a hog or a hen doesn't work in a
satisfactory way, it ceases to occupy space in my shop, just as would
an imperfect wheel. The utmost kindness is shown to all animals at Four
Oaks. This rule is the most imperative one on the place, and the one in
which no "extenuating circumstances" are taken into account. There are
two equal reasons for this: the first is a deep-rooted aversion to
cruelty in all forms; and the second is, _it pays_. But kindness to
animals doesn't imply the necessity of keeping useless ones or those
whose usefulness is below one's standard. If a man will use the
intelligence and attention to detail in the management of stock that is
necessary to the successful running of a complicated machine, he will
find that his stock doesn't differ greatly from his machine. The trouble
with most farmers is that they think the living machine can be neglected
with impunity, because it will not immediately destroy itself or others,
and because it is capable of a certain amount of self-maintenance; while
the dead machine has no power of self-support, and must receive careful
and punctual attention to prevent injury to itself and to other
property. If a dairyman will feed his cows as a thresher feeds the
cylinder of his threshing-machine, he will find that the milk will flow
from the one about as steadily as the grain falls from the other.
Intensive factory farming means the use of the best machines pushed to
the limit of their capacity through the period of their greatest
usefulness, and then replaced by others. Pushing to the limit of
capacity is in no sense cruelty. It is predicated on the perfect health
of the animal, for without perfect condition, neither machine nor animal
can do its best work. It is simply encouraging to a high degree the
special function for which generations of careful breeding have fitted
the animal.
That there is gratification in giving milk, no well-bred cow or mother
will deny. It is a joyous function to eat large quantities of pleasant
food and turn it into milk. Heredity impels the cow to do this, and it
would take generations of wild life to wean her from it. As well say
that the cataleptic trance of the pointer, when the game bird lies close
and the delicate scent fills his nostrils, is not a joy to him, or that
the Dalmatian at the heels of his horse, or the foxhound when Reynard's
trail is warm, receive no pleasure from their specialties.
Do these animals feel no joy in the performance of service which is bred
into their bones and which it is unnatural or freakish for them to lack?
No one who has watched the "bred-for-milk" cow can doubt that the joys
of her life are eating, drinking, sleeping, and giving milk. Pushing her
to the limit of her capacity is only intensifying her life, though,
possibly, it may shorten it by a year or two. While she lives she knows
all the happiness of cow life, and knows it to the full. What more can
she ask? She would starve on the buffalo grass which supports her
half-wild sister, "northers" would freeze her, and the snow would bury
her. She is a product of high cow-civilization, and as such she must
have the intelligent care of man or she cannot do her best. With this
care she is a marvellous machine for the making of the only article of
food which in itself is competent to support life in man. If my
Holsteins are not machines, they resemble them so closely that I will
not quarrel with the name.
What is true of the cow, is true also of the pork-making machine that we
call the hog. His wild and savage progenitor is lost, and we have in his
place a sluggish animal that is a very model as a food producer. His
three pleasures are eating, sleeping, and growing fat. He follows these
pleasures with such persistence that 250 days are enough to perfect him.
It can certainly be no hardship to a pig to encourage him in a life of
sloth and gluttony which appeals to his taste and to my profit.
Custom and interest make his life ephemeral; I make it comfortable. From
the day of his birth until we separate, I take watchful care of him.
During infancy he is protected from cold and wet, and his mother is
coddled by the most nourishing foods, that she may not fail in her duty
to him. During childhood he is provided with a warm house, a clean bed,
and a yard in which to disport himself, and is fed for growth and bone
on skim-milk, oatmeal, and sweet alfalfa. During his youth, corn meal is
liberally added to his diet, also other dainties which he enjoys and
makes much of; and during his whole life he has access to clean water,
and to the only medicine which a pig needs,--a mixture of ashes,
charcoal, salt, and sulphur.
When he has spent 250 happy days with me, we part company with feelings
of mutual respect,--he to finish his mission, I to provide for his
successor.
My early plan was to turn off 200 of this finished product each year,
but I soon found that I could do much better. One can raise a crop of
hogs nearly as quickly as a crop of corn, and with much more profit, if
the food be at hand. There was likely to be an abundance of food. I was
more willing to sell it in pig skins than in any other packages. My plan
was now to turn off, not 200 hogs each year, but 600 or more. I had 60
well-bred sows, young and old, and I could count on them to farrow at
least three times in two years. The litters ought to average 7 each, say
22 pigs in two years; 60 times 22 are 1320, and half of 1320 is 660.
Yes, at that rate, I could count on about 600 finished hogs to sell each
year. But if my calculations were too high, I could easily keep 10 more
brood sows, for I had sufficient room to keep them healthy.
The two five-acre lots, Nos. 3 and 5, had been given over to the brood
sows when they were not caring for young litters in the brood-house.
Comfortable shelters and a cemented basin twelve feet by twelve, and one
foot deep, had been built in each lot. The water-pipe that ran through
the chicken lot (No. 4) connected with these basins, as did also a
drain-pipe to the drain in the north lane, so that it was easy to turn
on fresh water and to draw off that which was soiled. Through this
device my brood sows had access to a water bath eight inches deep,
whenever they were in the fields. My hogs, young or old, have never been
permitted to wallow in mud. We have no mud-holes at Four Oaks to grow
stale and breed disease. The breeding hogs have exercise lots and baths,
but the young growing and fattening stock have neither. They are kept in
runs twenty feet by one hundred, in bunches of from twenty to forty,
according to age, from the time they are weaned until they leave the
place for good. This plan, which I did not intend to change, opened a
question in my mind that gave me pause. It was this: Can I hope, even
with the utmost care, to keep the house for growing and fattening swine
free from disease if I keep it constantly full of swine?
The more I thought about it the less probable it appeared. The pig-house
had cost me $4320. Another would cost as much, if not more, and I did
not like to go to the expense unless it were necessary. I worked over
this problem for several days, and finally came to the conclusion that
I should never feel easy about my swine until I had two houses for them,
besides the brood-house for the sows. I therefore gave the order to
Nelson to build another swine-house as soon as spring opened. My plan
was, and I carried it out, to move all the colonies every three months,
and to have the vacant house thoroughly cleaned, sprayed with a powerful
germicide, and whitewashed. The runs were to be turned over, when the
weather would permit, and the ground sown to oats or rye.
The new house was finished in June, and the pigs were moved into it on
July 1st with a lease of three months. My mind has been easy on the
question of the health of my hogs ever since; and with reason, for there
has been no epizoötic or other serious form of disease in my piggery, in
spite of the fact that there are often more than 1200 pigs of all
degrees crowded into this five-acre lot. The two pig-houses and the
brood-house, with their runs, cover the whole of the lot, except the
broad street of sixty feet just inside my high quarantine fence, which
encloses the whole of it.