_Philadelphia, Nov. 6th, 1843._
NOTICING in your October number an account of a dairy on Long Island, I
am induced to give you a description of one in this vicinity. Mr. Henry
Charley has a dairy farm near Laurel Hill, where he keeps from 40 to
50 cows, consisting of Ayrshire, Holderness, Alderny, Durham, and a
few natives; but mostly crossed with a fine, thorough-bred Short-Horn
bull, and is raising full bloods, and high grades of this breed as fast
as possible. He makes veal of his bull-calves, and raises all his best
heifer-calves from his best cows for his own use. I found the cows
luxuriating in a rich clover pasture when I visited them last summer
between 2 and 3 o'clock, the hour for afternoon milking, from which
they were taken by the herdsman, and driven half a mile to the barn.
This is a stone building 100 feet long, 46 feet wide, with a wing of
60 feet, the same width as the barn, high walls, and steep roof, which
make it capable of holding a great quantity of fodder, consisting last
year mostly of cornstalks, (some of which he bought very cheap of his
neighbors, while others let theirs stand in the field and this spring
raked them up and burned them,) rye straw, and oats unthrashed, all
of which he cuts and steams--sometimes with a little hay cut also and
mixed with the above articles. These are all steamed together, or each
separately, (as best suits the appetites of the cows) in a large vat,
connected with a pipe through which the steam passes from the boiler,
which stands in a room adjoining with stone or ground floor. The
chimney is of sheet-iron running up through the roof, and coal used
for fuel, renders the risk for insurance at a very low rate. The water
is supplied from a spring running into the yard, and thence through
a pipe into the boiler. The cows are also watered from the same when
the weather is stormy in winter, and they are not allowed to go out.
But to return from this digression. After the fodder is sufficiently
cooked, which takes but a short time, it is taken out into other
larger vats or troughs, with scoop shovels, and there left to cool;
then a suitable portion of Indian meal or ground rye, buck-wheat, or
oats, or any two or all four mixed and ground together, (which in my
opinion would be better,) adding a portion of ship-stuffs, shorts, or
even bran. This is the food for the cows at all seasons, except when
there is a full supply of grass. They are driven to a woods pasture for
exercise and air when there is little or no grass. Air and exercise are
indispensably necessary for the health of cows, and without these, the
milk will always be more or less unhealthy, according to the nature of
their confinement.
When the cows were brought into the yard, I was puzzled to know how
they were to be handled; but the stable doors being thrown open, each
cow entered the door nearest her stall, and went to it with as much
regularity as a young miss goes to her seat in a boarding-school. There
is a drop in the floor immediately behind the cows, 14 inches wide and
4 inches deep; into this all the excrements fall, the water running
off immediately to a reservoir prepared for the purpose of receiving
it; this, together with all the manure, was taken away daily, and
put upon the land or crops or in a heap to make compost; so that the
premises were kept perfectly clean and sweet. The floor was covered
with a thin bed of cut straw, which was passed off with the manure
as it became soiled, and by being cut, worked immediately into and
incorporated itself with the manure, without vexing the husbandman
or gardener as long green manure so frequently does. The floor behind
the cows, between the trough to catch the liquid and the wall, is six
feet wide, with strong plank platforms or tables on which to set the
vessels containing the milk. There is an open space directly over the
vat for steaming, where all the feed is cut and passed down through
a hopper into the vat; also, hoppers or spouts leading from the meal
room over head directly into the vats, which contain the steamed feed
for cooking. The mangers in which the cows are fed are broad, so that
the food may be thrown into them with scoop shovels without waste, of
which I found nothing of the kind about the whole premises. If a little
too much feed is given to one animal, and consequently left, it is
carefully scraped out and fed to one having a better appetite; thus the
mangers were kept clean and sweet. Mr. Charley feeds roots, but to what
extent I did not learn. I hope he may be induced to write you a letter,
giving a description of his cutting machine, which does its work better
than any one I have ever seen; having two blades coming together like
shears, cutting corn-stalks through their joints with as much apparent
ease as a pair of tailor's shears would cut a thread.
There is a stable for dried cows which were feeding for the butcher.
Box stalls are provided for cows about to calve; the young cattle
are kept by themselves, as are also the calves. Mr. Charley was not
at home when I visited his dairy; but this disappointment to me was
made up by the kind Mrs. C., who, with justifiable pride, showed me
her spring house with its large copper caldron for scalding her milk
tubs, pans, pails, churns, &c. &c., in the best of order, all of which
she personally superintends and looks after; and whenever there is an
overstock of milk for city customers, it is here converted into butter
of the choicest quality, and each market-day finds her at her stand
with her butter and lots of garden vegetables, the raising of which she
also superintends and takes into the city at the dawn of day. That some
families are sick and others miserably poor, is not strange, to one who
looks behind the curtain and sees what can never otherwise be described.