known as the Rush County Stockmen’s Union, and adopted a constitution.
The objects of the association are set forth in the following
_therefore_ of the preamble to the constitution: “In order to protect
ourselves from persecution and to secure for ourselves all possible
legitimate advantages, and in all proper ways to promote the interests
of those in our country engaged in the production of any kind of live
stock, we, a number of the stock growers of Rush county, have formed an
organization known as the Rush County Stockmen’s Union.” It is said
there exists in Rush county an element of society which is violently
antagonistic to the stock interests.
* * * * *
While at Elgin last week we accompanied Dr. Pratt to his home to take a
look at his herd of Holstein cattle. The sight of the long rows of
stalls filled with this young breeding milk stock was a surprise.
Counting a new arrival of twenty-five during our visit the Doctor now
has about 130 head—certainly one of the largest as it is one of the
best herds of Holsteins in the country. The Doctor breeds and buys to
sell again, and his trade is large, as he does not demand fancy prices
but simply a fair return for his investment, care and labor. The famous
bull Cyclone heads the home herd. The females are generally from a year
and a half to three years old. Duchess of York is his brag cow, though
he has other strains nearly as famous for milk. The young bull,
Berkhout, a prize winner in Holland, is a capital animal. Though a dull
season of the year shipments from this herd are numerous. A bull and
three heifers go the present week to J. J. Conklin, Valley Creek, Texas.
H. H. Bissell, Navasota, Texas, takes a bull and two females. The
promising bull Duke, of Oak Hill, goes to A. H. Woodruff, Lansing, Iowa.
Mr. W. also takes a yearling heifer. The Duke weighs 1,650 pounds, and
was but two years old the 17th of June last. The Doctor reports the
demand from the South as wonderfully increasing. In 1883 he had orders
from Texas, Mississippi, Louisiana, Florida, Kentucky and Tennessee. He
will stock his ranch in Kansas this spring and summer with a view to
supplying the West and Southwest with grades and full bloods.
A SCARE IN MISSOURI.
Information was received at the Department of Agriculture, at
Washington, last week that a new and heretofore unknown cattle disease
has broken out in various parts of Missouri. It was reported most
prevalent in the vicinity of Mexico.
As is usual in such matters when first brought to public notice the
facts have been greatly exaggerated. Dr. Salmon, Chief of the Government
Veterinary Bureau, who was in Chicago this week, says that as presented
to him at Washington he did not consider the outbreak a very serious
one. The trouble so far as he knows exists in but a single herd, and
that near Mexico. He promptly sent a veterinarian to the spot to
investigate and report. He judges from the information he has received
that the disease is simply the impaction of food in the stomach,
something far from uncommon at this season of the year. It results
generally from eating the dried fodder of the corn-fields. It is in no
sense contagious.
Perhaps our veterinary editor will give us something regarding the
treatment of this trouble. In the meantime we give a remedy suggested by
a Missouri gentleman who called at this office last week: Keep in a
trough before the cattle at all times, a mixture of slaked lime and
salt, and let them have free access to good water.
PUBLIC SALES OF STOCK.
So far as they have come to our notice the following are the principal
stock sales announced thus far to take place in 1884:
March 19—Wm. Yule, Short-horns, Somers, Kenosha Co., Wis.
Feb. 21—A. G. Epler, Jerseys, Virginia, Ill.
March 26—D. L. Emery, Galva, Ill.
April 2—D. M. Fall, Albia, Iowa.
April 3—Elbert & Fall, Albia, Iowa.
April 10-11—Leonard Bros., Kansas City, Mo.
April 22—Ex’rs of L. Palmer, Chicago.
April 24—Saline Co. (Mo.) breeders.
April 30—S. W. & W. O. Sinclair, Ashland, Ill.
May 1—Hon. Wm. M. Smith, Lexington, Ill.
May 1-2—Lafayette Co. Breeders’ Association, at Higginsville, Mo.
May 13—Thos. H. Crowder and B. Z. & T. M. Taylor, Decatur, Ill.
May 15—R. Huston & Son, Chicago.
May 27—R. F. Burke, Camp Point, Ill.
May 27—J. C. Stone, Leavenworth, Kan.
May 28—J. S. Latimer, Abingdon, Ill.
May 29—Strawther Givens, Abingdon.
June 3—J. N. Brown’s Sons, Berlin, Ill.
June 4—S. E. Prather and D. W. Smith, Springfield, Ill.
June 5—Pickrell, Thomas & Smith, Harristown, Ill.
June 6—J. H. Potts & Son, Jacksonville, Ill.
June 11—W. Cummings & Son, Buda, Ill.
June 17—T. W. Harvey, Short-horns, Chicago.
June 19—R. Huston & Son, Chicago.
June 20—T. W. Harvey, Holsteins and Jerseys, Chicago.
Hagan W. Williams (Short-horns), St. Marys, Kas., Feb. 8.
H. H. Lackey & Son (Short-horns), Peabody, Kas., Feb. 27 and 28.
A. B. Matthews (Polled-Angus and Galloways), Kansas City, March 12 and
13.
G. W. Henry (Polled-Angus and grade Short-horns), Kansas City, March 26
and 27.
John X. Giffith (Short-horns), Shenandoah, Iowa, April 1.
M. H. Cochrane (Polled cattle), Chicago, April 2 and 3.
M. H. Cochrane (Polled cattle), Kansas City, April 8 and 9.
Thos. Hughes (Short-horns), Chicago, April 9 and 10.
George Leigh (Imp. Herefords), Chicago, April 10.
Leonard Bros. (Polled cattle), Kansas City, April 15, 16, and 17.
Prather G. Bennett (Short-horns), Safford, Kas., April 18.
C. M. Gifford & Son (Short-horns), Manhattan, Kas., April 23.
R. L. McDonald (Short-horns) St. Joe, Mo., April 30.
Jackson Co. Breeders (Short-horns), Kansas City, May 6, 7, and 8.
H. D. Ayres (Short-horns), Breckenridge, Mo., May 9.
Leonard Bros. (Polled cattle), Kansas City, May 13, 14, and 15.
W. P. Young (Short-horns), Mt. Pleasant, Iowa, May 27.
J. G. Gowan & Son and Col. Thad Hickman (Short-horns), St. Joe, Mo., May 28.
J. S. Latimer & Sons (Short-horns), Abingdon, Ill., May 28.
W. T. Hearne (Short-horns), Lee’s Summit, Mo., May 29.
Clinton County, Mo., Breeders (Short-horns), Plattsburgh, June 4 and 5.
Thoroughbred Live Stock Association, Higginsville, Mo., Oct. 15 and 16.
Adams Earl (Herefords), Chicago, Nov. 20.
REMEDY FOR FOOT-AND-MOUTH DISEASE.
Rev. F. H. Brett, Carsington Rectory, writes as follows to the English
agricultural papers:
Some few years ago, when the foot-and-mouth disease was prevailing, I
gave a farmer in this parish, who had the disease among his cattle, some
sulphur_ous_ acid, and advised him to make trial of the following
treatment: To put about two ounces of the acid into a quart bottle and
fill up with water, and then give about a tablespoonful of this dilution
three times a day to the diseased cattle. He acted upon my advice, and
the result was that his cattle were quickly cured of the disease. Again,
two or three weeks ago one of my parishioners came to me to inform me
that one of his cows was affected with this disease, and to ask me if I
could give him anything for it. I gave him some of the same acid, to be
used as above stated, and advised him also to burn a little sulphur in
the shed in which the diseased cow was kept, two or three times a day.
He followed my advice, and three or four days after I was informed that
the cow was doing nicely, and was giving her milk again. My confidence
in the remedy is therefore confirmed, and I think I am in duty bound to
make it as widely known as possible. In addition to giving the acid
internally, I advised the moistening of the affected feet also with the
same dilution with a sponge.
The sulphur_ous_ acid acts remedially, I conclude, by being destructive
of the life of the microbes, or exceedingly minute animaculæ, that gives
rise to the disease; and I feel persuaded that, if the owners of cattle
would take the trouble to burn a little sulphur once or twice a week in
their cattle sheds, they would not only protect their cattle from
attacks of foot-and-mouth disease, but have them also in a more healthy
and vigorous condition, especially in the season of tying-up and
confinement.
I have underlined the last syllable of sulphurous to guard against
mistake. Sulphur_ic_ acid would only be productive of mischief.
Sulphur_ous_ acid may be obtained through any druggist in sealed
stoppered bottles at a small expense.
The simplest way of burning sulphur in the cowsheds is as follows: Take
a slip of cardboard, or of extra stout brown paper, about a foot long
and two inches wide, and place on one extremity about as much
coarsely-powdered brimstone as would lie on a penny piece, hold it by
the other end, and apply the flame of a candle till the sulphur is
ignited, and then wave it about in the shed, in order to disperse the
vapor among the cattle; if there be straw, or anything else inflammable
about, hold a tile, or something of the sort, in the other hand, under
the burning sulphur, to catch any that may drop.
[Illustration]
THE DAIRY
Dairymen, Write for Your Paper.
THE WISCONSIN DAIRYMEN.
The papers and discussions at Lake Mills comprehended quite a range of
topics, and they were handled with marked ability. Three of the essays
have now appeared in THE PRAIRIE FARMER in full. They were too good to
slaughter by abridgment, and the same remark applies to other papers,
yet our space is too limited for an unabridged report.
THE ROAD TO THE FACTORY,
by Robt. Fargo, showed the people how much they are losing by persisting
in having poor roads, when by a small expense they might have good ones.
The road tax is improperly applied. He thought that a good gravel road
in most localities could be made for $1,000 per mile, the road-bed to be
graveled one foot deep and twelve feet wide.
CANADA VS. WISCONSIN.
Mr. Harris’ paper, printed in last week’s FARMER, elicited considerable
discussion. Members desired to know if, in the essayist’s opinion,
Canadian dairy management was superior to that of the States, and
especially of Wisconsin. The reply was in the affirmative. There seems
to be more thoroughness on the part of Canadian dairymen. They have no
better grass, nor water, nor cows. They discriminate more rigidly
between good and bad patrons. They sometimes bring the law to bear
against those who water milk or skim it. The factories there are mostly
owned by stock companies. When tainted milk is discovered in the vat, it
is traced back as soon as possible to its source, and the patron
bringing it is excluded. The law there is similar to that in New York
and was founded upon that law. Mr. Fish related an instance where a
fraudulent patron in Herkimer county, N. Y., had been detected, sued,
and heavily fined for his practices. Mr. Harris said as inspector of
factories, he always refused to receive milk from cows allowed to feed
on slough grass or drink stagnant water. Such milk would always prevent
the manufacture of good cheese. He wants no milk from cows forced to
feed on marshes. When a man applies to a factory to sell his milk, he
looks the man over, he visits his farm, he looks at the stables and all
the surroundings, and he can generally tell whether or not it is safe to
receive that man’s milk.
COMPETITION.
It cropped out in this discussion that in some parts of Wisconsin and
Illinois there are too many factories. Competition leads factorymen to
often receive milk that should be discarded. To offend a man by
enforcing strict cleanliness, non-skimming, and stripping was to drive
him to a neighboring factory and his custom is lost. It is hard to make
owners of cows honest when dishonest or selfish factorymen encourage
them in selfish and fraudulent ways. Mr. Harris said at some of the best
Canadian factories patrons were refused the privilege of taking home the
whey in their milk cans. He would have no objection to their taking the
whey if all would cleanse their cans properly. But this could not be
depended upon.
WATER IN MILK.
He detects water in milk by means of a little German instrument called
Horren’s Milk Tester, patented in Hanover. They cost fifty cents each by
the 100. They are for sale by Cornish & Curtis, Ft. Atkinson, Wis., and
by some others of the dairy supply concerns. This little instrument is
invaluable to the factoryman.
PRIDE IN BUSINESS.
Another thing about the Canadians is they take such pride in their
business that they are not given to adulterating their butter and
cheese. They make a cheese that sells as the best cheddar in the English
markets. The best Wisconsin cheese that Mr. Harris saw at the Milwaukee
dairy fair was several points below the best Canadian article. The
difference lies in the want of skill in the maker, and the greed of the
patrons which often leads them to skim and to withhold the strippings.
SKIMMING.
There were those present who claimed that more money can be realized by
making both butter and cheese than from cheese alone, though its quality
makes it bring a higher price. So long as this is the case such will
continue to make skim cheese. They say a man must be governed by the
market he is to supply. If one makes for a home market where skim cheese
is liked it is all right to make butter from the same milk. It was
replied that as our dairymen in general must look abroad for their
market, that good, straight, full cream cheese is bound to win in the
long run. When the foreign market for the Wisconsin product is
destroyed it will take years of honest effort to rebuild the old
reputation.
THE CHEDDAR.
The cheddar cheese of Canada is made by drawing off the whey while it is
sweet, the curd being allowed to sour afterward. It takes too long to
make this cheese to suit the Western cheese-maker. But you can not make
the best cheese in a hurry. There is more nutriment in the cheddar than
in the common cheese of the States.
BY THE ACRE.
Mr. Hiram Smith said in his paper that he computes his butter and cheese
by the acre, meaning that his effort is to see how much dairy product he
can get from an acre of ground. The herd of cows that can produce the
most from a mow of hay or a given amount of pasturage is the best herd.
That system which will take 1,000 lbs. of feed and get the most from it
is the best system. He plows up about four acres of pasture every year,
and proposes to reduce the acreage of his pasture thus gradually to the
end. He grows feed for the cows on the acres plowed up. It is the
cheapest method. He uses green feed, bran, straw, roots, etc. This gives
the most milk at the least expense. He uses the submerging system of
butter-making. A bushel basket full of pounded ice twice per day will
keep milk cool regardless of weather. Cool the milk suddenly no matter
what the system. Four pounds of butter from 100 pounds of milk is all he
expects to get in summer. In fall, perhaps another pound, but it will
not be of so high a grade.
THE HOLSTEINS.
Mr. Curtis, of New York, said a good word for the Holsteins as dairy
stock. At the Cornell University farm they come in at two years, are
milked seven or eight years, and then fattened for beef. He would not
recommend this system for all breeds.
CALVES.
Mr. Northup said he can raise better calves on skimmed milk than on
whole milk. Others agreed with him, and a few differed, asking what the
Lord put the cream in milk for. Reply: to mix with butterine.
ITEMS.
Professor Henry mentioned some of the experiments now being carried on
at the State University to show the value of different stock foods,
tile, drainage, etc. He is feeding cotton seed meal, malt, sprouts, oil
cake, ensilage, etc. Cotton seed meal induces a very rich flow of milk.
Mr. Smith thinks skimmed milk worth 35 cents per 100 pounds for
cheese-making, for those who have a demand for that kind of cheese.
Mr. Favill, of Walworth county, set the teeth of the dairymen on edge,
by asserting and proving by figures that he could make more money from
same outlay in beef making in six months, than any of them could in a
year from the dairy. Mr. F. will write out his experience in this line
for THE PRAIRIE FARMER at an early day.
We cut short our notes of the discussions somewhat, to make room for Mr.
Smith’s instructive essay on
NEGLECTED OPPORTUNITIES.
So long as it is true that the average yield, per cow, in milk that is
taken to the factories is less rather than more than 3,000 pounds per
season, and so long as it is true that there are dairymen whose cows
yield from 4,000 to 5,000 pounds each per season, it will be easy to
make it appear there are neglected opportunities on the part of most
dairymen which, if availed of, would greatly augment the annual yield,
and consequently make larger the profits.
One of the fundamental truths in stock-raising, and in profitable milk
production, is, that it takes a given amount of food to support the
animal’s existence in such a way that it will simply maintain its
status; and that growth in flesh or yield in milk, above an evenly
balanced existence, must come from the food given to cause an increase
of weight in flesh, fat, or milk products. Hence, all the profit must
come from that excess, and is large or small just in proportion as the
animal is capacitated to utilize and digest it, within the bounds of
healthy, judicious feeding. So that farmer was sound who, when he fed up
to the very verge of that limit, and was told by a skeptic that he did
not believe high feeding paid, replied he was only sorry that his cows
could not healthfully digest more. The capital invested in the cows, in
the soil, in the barns and stables, in the care and time devoted to
milking and waiting on them, is very nearly the same, whether they
produce 3,000 pounds each per season, or 5,000 pounds. At first it may
be granted that if a farm is stocked to its capacity in feeding a herd
of 3,000-pound cows, that some outside food must be imported from other
soil to enable the same herd to yield 5,000 pounds each. But the
enriching of the manure through high feeding, and the consequent
enriching of the land, will soon obviate the necessity of the
importation of outside food. If this is not true, I admit that my
opinion is based on false premises; and that the opponents of high
feeding have the best of the argument, as well as a majority of the
disciples, and a majority of the thinly-covered bones of the so-called
dairy stock of the State. In support of the idea that there is an added
value to the manure through high feeding, it may be stated that there
are many places in the Eastern States in which in estimating the
earnings of the cow each year, that the milk, or butter and cheese, the
calf and the pork are not only counted, but $10 per well-fed cow is
added for the increased value she has put upon the soil, deposited it in
a bank that never breaks. What is true of the old East is fast becoming
true of the soil of the older settled portions of Wisconsin. To augment
the productive capacity of a given number of acres, that will now
support in semi-starvation a given number of cows, to a point in
fertility that will add 2,000 pounds of milk per annum to each cow, milk
worth, say $20, is to have the funds in hand to pay the sum of $400 as
interest on the added value to an ordinary farm of eighty acres that is
made to well keep twenty cows, instead of keeping them in the usual way.
Four hundred dollars will pay 5 per cent interest per annum on an added
value of $100 per acre to the farm. This can be done without adding a
cow to the herd. All done by a simple expansion, through better use of
the capital already in the hands of many who work on the semi-starvation
plan.
The very first neglected opportunity of the mass of farmers is, that
they do not see, and do not make much effort to see, that there is a
better way than to plow, and plow, and plow, seldom seed down, keep a
few head of spindling cows, mostly to give birth to spindling calves,
that by a stretch of the imagination may be called cows when five or six
years old; sell such cows, instead of selling butter and cheese to buy
their clothes and groceries, sell hay to buy their whisky, and their
farms by the bushel to pay for them if in debt, or to add some
improvements in buildings if they are not. It would be useless to
further describe them—they are not here, as they never go to dairy
conventions, or even to county agricultural meetings or annual fairs;
and so any rebuke of their methods would not reach their ears. Let them
pass; the chief regret for their fate being that their name is legion,
and that they seem to be beyond the reach of mercy.
The next class, and the one for which this association has much
missionary work to do, is the one that has shown some signs of progress;
that is still in unbelief of the radical truth, but yet seems to be
uttering the invocation of doubting Thomas, of old. The most marked
neglect of opportunity by this class is in not accepting the truth
alluded to previously, that it pays to transform 2,500 and 3,000-pound
cows into 4,000 and 5,000-pound ones, through the process of more
generous, and better paying feeding. Many of this class know that a
paying flow of milk comes only from food judiciously given; but who have
not yet learned the programme by which such food can be ever on hand, or
do not possess the intelligent enterprise to put forth the means to
obtain it. As this is, largely, the hopeful class, we may well pray for
their growth in dairy grace, in the knowledge of the truth, as it is
exemplified in the reliable experience of the few saints in the
business, who know how to make good common cows earn $50 and $60, and
more, each, per annum.
Observation and my factory books for a series of years, teach that
persons of this class start out well in the spring, and have cows that
maintain the flowing stream for awhile, so that the
four-and-five-thousand pound yield would be obtained if they did not
suffer it to come to grief, by not providing means to hedge against the
immediate and consequent influences of the first serious check in the
supply of palatable and easily digested food in the pastures. This is
the great fatality of the whole business—a tolerated calamity as we may
call it, for it endures a lapse that can not afterward be made good, the
same season. It is to the paying yield of the cow what an untimely frost
is to an unmatured corn crop. It is my firm belief that this is the
great sin of the medium good dairyman of this and other dairy
States,—the cause of the low average earnings of the cows; the reason
why so many dairymen work so cheaply; the promoter of infidelity in the
mind of the dairyman as to whether he has not made a mistake in entering
upon the dairy business at all; in short, it is the chief “neglected
opportunity” to get upon the highway to success. That opportunity, when
interpreted, means that when the chief available supply of food fails,
or lessens, or becomes unpalatable or undigestible, that a substitute
previously provided should be immediately supplied. Let the substitute
be early rye, clover, oats, millet, corn, or other fodder, grown for the
purpose, according to the time in the season in which the pressing need
comes; and if neither are in available time, then let the substitute
take the form of ground grain in larger measures than should be given to
every cow in milk, every day, even when feeding on the flushest and
choicest of grasses. That is the way the 5,000-pound to the cow dairymen
do; and they win in doing it. But the blighted class seem to look upon
it as they would on an accidental fire, an untimely death, an early
frost, an unavertable calamity; a kind of Providential dispensation, the
superstitious regard it. The latter class betake themselves to prayer
for rain, instead of taking the scoop-shovel to the provender, and
distributing it to their famishing herds. Troops of them don’t know that
they are suffering any but present loss in weight, and delude themselves
into thinking a blessed rain will restore their cows to the position
they fell from. They don’t seem to comprehend that they thus lose their
grip on the $50 and $60 per annum prize, and their uncertainty of
getting it. The result is, they have their big flow of milk at the
season of the year in which dairy products are ever the cheapest; and
their cows are crippled for good performance at the pail, when
ever-returning good prices in the fall and early winter show them what
golden opportunities they have lost.