On the eighteenth of May, her bag began to swell, and became feverish.
A quart or two of watery milk was drawn at intervals of eight hours for
the next three days, and the udder was bathed as often in tepid water,
and gently but thoroughly rubbed with goose oil, in which camphor-gum
had been dissolved. Each day, also, she was given a quarter of a pound
of Epsom Salts, dissolved in a quart of “tea” made from poke-weed root
(_Phytolacca decandra_), which all druggists now keep in store; this
was administered as a “drench,” from a bottle, her head being held up
while she swallowed it. On the morning of the twenty-second, being two
days overdue, she calved, having a hard time, but producing without help
a fine large heifer. Very soon after, I gave her a bucket of cool (not
cold) water, in which was stirred a quart of wheat bran, a half pound of
linseed-meal, previously scalded, and a handful of pulverized poke or
garget root. This mess was repeated at noon, and the bag milked dry. A
little later, the after-birth naturally passed off and was removed. The
udder remained hot, knotty, and so tender that when the calf sucked I had
to protect it from the mother’s kicks, and also to prevent it from taking
one teat which was extremely sore. From this quarter I carefully drew the
milk with one of a set of four “milking-tubes,” which I bought two years
ago to do my milking, but soon discarded; here they came in use, just the
thing wanted, but one as good as four. At night I milked dry, gave a dose
of half a pound of Salts, with one ounce of Nitre, and a warm Bran-mash.
The bag was well rubbed as before. The cow ate some hay during the night,
and a few cabbage sprouts in the morning. That day (twenty-third), she
was on the pasture a little while, and had a full bag of milk, but still
hot and tender. The calf was separated from the cow at daylight, and
allowed to suck four times during the day, the bag being milked dry, and
then oiled and well rubbed every time. The bowels appearing to be in a
sufficiently active state, appetite improving, and her eyes natural, the
physic was discontinued, the cow allowed to eat grass and hay at will,
and for several days the calf sucked at daylight, noon, and dark, the
milk left by it being all drawn. The bag was rubbed and anointed two or
three times a day, and a little extract of Belladonna added to the oil
used. Under this treatment the inflammation gradually subsided. As soon
as the cow would allow her calf to take the tenderest teat, I kept it on
that side as much as possible while sucking. At the end of a week after
calving, the udder was again in sound condition. The calf was kept until
the first of June, and then the owner of its sire took it in full for
service of bull three seasons. We then began to get the full flow of
milk, and the pasture being good, it was a fine mess daily. At that time,
I began to measure the milk, and have done so ever since. “June” gave
four hundred and eighty-two quarts the month she was five years old, an
average of sixteen quarts a day.
Until the last of July, the cow got all her food from the pasture, and
one acre would have done as well as one and a quarter. For the next
five or six weeks, the grass was hardly sufficient; it was, for this
period, based upon the experience of August, 1876, that the corn had
been provided. The ten rods of Mammoth Sweet, three hundred and fifty to
four hundred hills, had been put in at five different plantings, a week
apart, and the earliest was just forming ears the last of July when I
began using it, at first once a day, then twice. For each feed, the whole
plants of three or four hills were taken, and chopped in a straw-cutter,
ears and all, into two-inch lengths. This was eaten with great relish,
and during August the cow spent most of the daytime standing in the
stream where shaded by trees and grazed at night. The pasturage improved
again before the corn gave out, so quite a nice piece of winter fodder
was saved from the piece. Then all through September there was every day
more or less of green-corn husks, carrot and beet tops, other vegetable
and fruit trimmings, clean refuse from house and garden, good food for
the cow, so that again one acre of pasture would have sufficed. During
October, the carrots and mangolds were harvested, and their tops gave the
cow more than she could manage. I also began feeding turnips the last
of October, a few with mangel tops at first, increasing until she ate
more than half a bushel a day, tops and all. Before the ground froze,
the turnips were piled in the barn, without trimming, and covered with
hay; were kept safely until the last were fed, November twenty-eighth.
The problem of winter feeding really came up the first of November. I
had a large supply of roots on hand of my own raising, and the hay and
grain to buy. So I went to the books, and after studying both practice
and science, decided upon the following daily rations for the next six
months: November first to May first, fifteen pounds of meadow rowen and
clover hay, in about equal parts; one pound each of coarse wheat bran and
corn-meal, mixed. During November, one-half bushel turnips and two pounds
cotton-seed meal; December and January, one-half bushel carrots and one
and one-half pound cotton-seed meal; February and March, one-half bushel
(or more) of mangels and one pound cotton-seed meal; April, one-half
bushel parsnips and one and one-half pounds cotton-seed meal; also, one
hundred pounds additional hay, and my corn-stalks, for February and March.
This plan has been carried out with little variation. Of course the
food has not been accurately weighed daily. The grain portions, kept in
barrels, have been dipped out with tin cups, but have held out just about
as expected; the quantity of hay and roots has been guessed at.