The cost of keeping the cow from November first, 1877, to June first,
1878, was as follows:
150 pounds of Indian Meal, at $1.40 $ 2.10
380 ” Ship Stuff, at $1.35 5.13
110 ” Oil Meal, at $1.30 1.82
4140 ” Roots, at $8.00 per ton 16.56
3392 ” Hay, at $20 33.92
1 peck Salt 0.25
------
$59.78
The cost from June first to November first, 1878, was as follows:
1530 pounds of Hay, at $20 $15.30
225 ” Oil meal, at $1.30 2.92
470 ” Bran, at $1.35 6.35
Salt 0.25
Service 2.00
----- $26.82
------
Making a total cost of $86.60
for the year, counting nothing for the garden truck consumed during the
summer and autumn. This, with the exception of the corn stalks, would
have been consigned to the compost heap, had she not eaten it, so that
its only value to me was its value for compost. But allowing that for the
purpose of feed it was equal in value to its equivalent in hay, and that
my winter ration of hay had been continued through the year, her total
cost of keeping would have been, in round numbers, one hundred and four
dollars.
In the roots fed to her during the winter, were included the waste
and parings of vegetables used in a family of ten persons, which was
sometimes no inconsiderable item. These were always thrown into the feed
basket, and just enough fresh roots sliced to make the required weight.
After the roots stored in the cellar were exhausted no account was made
of this item. I make this statement simply to show that every item of
feed was entered at its full value, into the cost of the keeping.
Now for the other side. Although the cow was quite thin when I bought
her, yet under this system of care and feeding, she was estimated to
have gained two hundred pounds in weight by the time she calved, on the
fifteenth of April, 1878, and of this weight she had not lost more than
seventy-five pounds at the end of the year, November first. When I bought
her she was represented as yielding three quarts of milk per day. Her
yield of milk weighed on the first day exactly five and three-quarter
pounds. At the end of three weeks, it had increased to eleven pounds
per day, and continued at this figure with scarcely any interruption
until the first of February. It then rapidly fell off, until by the
twenty-fifth of that month, she yielded only seven pounds per day. I then
commenced milking her once a day, and the milking on the fourth day after
weighed only four and a half pounds. I continued milking her until the
fifteenth of March, when I stopped, the weight of the last milking being
only one and three-quarter pounds. On the tenth or April she calved. I
let her calf suckle her until it was four weeks old, when it was sold
for veal. On the seventh of May her yield of milk was twenty-two pounds.
It averaged about that figure until she got a full feed of pea vines in
June, when it ran up as high as twenty-seven pounds. In July it fell off
some, and continued to run from twenty to twenty-three pounds until the
middle of August. It then gradually diminished to the first of November,
at which time she was yielding thirteen pounds of milk per day. I find,
by referring to my diary, that her total yield of milk from the time I
purchased her until she calved, was one thousand and sixty-seven pounds,
equal to four hundred and eighty-four quarts, reckoning thirty-four
ounces to the quart. Milk was then selling, in this vicinity, at six
cents per quart, making a value of twenty-six dollars and four cents.
From the time she calved until the first of November, her total yield of
milk was three thousand seven hundred and seventy-seven pounds, equal
to one thousand seven hundred and seventy-seven quarts, at five cents,
eighty-eight dollars and eighty-five cents; sale of calf, six dollars and
fifty-cents; making a net profit of seventeen dollars and thirty-nine
cents, to say nothing of the growth of the cow, or the value of her
manure, which was an ample compensation for the care of keeping.
Had I estimated the value of her milk at the retail price, I should add
one cent per quart for summer, and two cents per quart for winter. The
next year this same cow, with the increase of the equivalent of one and
a half pounds of meal per day, to allow for her increased growth, and a
slight deviation in the matter of feed during the summer, whereby she
obtained more green food, of which I shall speak hereafter, increased her
profit almost forty per cent.