By sale of Milk, at 6 cents per quart $51.30
do. Calf, two weeks old 3.00
do. Cow, October 1 12.00
------- $66.30
------
Loss $2.20
This difference in profit was occasioned solely by the difference of the
yield of her milk in the two seasons. The yield for the second season
averaged full three quarts per day less than the first, and, at the same
time, the quality of the milk was deteriorated in the same proportion as
the quantity.
This was my first lesson, acquired by experience. At the same time, I
learned another by observation. The two combined added materially to my
stock of knowledge.
A neighbor of mine, a German, in the month of January, 1849, purchased
a heifer, three years of age the coming spring. She had been kept poor
from the time she was weaned. At two years of age she had dropped her
first calf, and through her first season of milk had given but little
promise as a milker. She had just been dried when he purchased her, and
he, without any previous knowledge of the care of cows, commenced feeding
her according to his instincts. He fed her six quarts of meal per day, in
addition to all the hay she would eat. This system of feeding continued
until about the twenty-fifth of March, when she calved. At the time of
calving she was in better condition than much of the beef sold in our
markets.
About the same time that his cow calved I repurchased mine. The feed of
the two, thereafter, was very nearly alike, except that his cow had a
feed of six quarts of meal per day, while mine had only two. His fat cow
doubled on the quantity of milk that she had given the year before, when
she came in poor, while my poor cow, with extra feed, fell short more
than a third of her yield of the year before, when she came in, in good
condition.
At that time I do not remember to have ever seen a work on chemistry, and
knew nothing of its application; but the knowledge acquired, led to the
formation of a theory in my mind, on which I have since acted, and which,
I believe, has a scientific basis, to wit: “The fat laid on the body of
an in-calf cow, is a store from which nature draws a large portion of the
material which increases and enriches the subsequent flow of milk—a store
from which she, by legitimate processes, produces oleo-stearine in the
shape of butter.”
Acting upon this theory, I have endeavored to apportion to my cows a
uniform daily ration, occasionally varying the material, which, although
it may not sustain the cow in full flesh during the greatest flow of
milk, seems to renew it during the period of the lesser flow, and render
them in good condition at the time of calving. This system of uniform
feeding, to my mind, pays better than it does to feed heavily while in
milk, and then lightly when dry, because it furnishes a large resource
of fat, on which to draw at a time when to consume sufficient food to
sustain the entire flow of milk capable of being produced, might imperil
health; and I feel quite sure that a certain richness is thereby imparted
to the milk, that no amount of feeding will draw from a poor cow. In the
autumn of 1877 I purchased a grade heifer reputed to be seven-eighths
Jersey and one-eighth Ayrshire. She had dropped her first calf the spring
previous, when only two years old. She was then represented as yielding
three quarts of milk per day, and due to calve April the sixth. To
account for the small yield of milk, her owner said she had been kept on
poor pasture and milked by careless boys, who had not been particular to
milk her clean.
That she had been kept on poor pasture her appearance abundantly
confirmed. She came into my possession during the root harvest, in
November. I commenced by feeding to her three bushels of rutabaga tops,
or of beet tops, three pounds of corn meal, together with all the dry hay
she would eat each day.