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UNIVERSITY Of ILLINOIS

imm

AYRSHIRES IN SCOTLAND.

OLD TIME AND MODERN COW-LORE
RECTIFIED, CONCENTRATED AND RECORDED
FOR THE BENEFIT OF MAN

BY

JACOB BIGGLE

ILLUSTRATED

“ The man who does not love a cow
Is but a poor stick anyhow

PHILADELPHIA

WILMER ATKINSON CO.
1898

Copyright, 1897
Wilmer Atkinson Co.

Co 5 (b , 2_

fjfZMQTE 3 I G 4— -"

CONTENTS.

to

PAGE

List of Colored Plates 6

Preface 7

Chart Showing External Cow 9

Chapter I. Statistics ii

Chapter II. Breeds 13

Chapter III. The Bull 21

Chapter IV. Mother Cow 23

Chapter V. Baby 31

Chapter VI. The Heifer 35

Chapter VII. The Ox 37

Chapter VIII. Food and Drink 39

Chapter IX. Food and Drink, ( Continued ) 47

Chapter X. The Barn 53

Chapter XI. Stable Requisites 59

Chapter XII. The Good Milker .63

Chapter XIII. Milk and Cream * 67

/—-Chapter XIV Butter 73

Chapter XV. Imitations 81

Chapter XVI. Cheese 83

Chapter XVII. Beef 89

Chapter XVIII. By-Products 93

Chapter XIX. Winter 99

Ov Chapter XX. Points on Markets 103

Chapter XXI. Dairy Appliances 109

Chapter XXII. Public Creamery 117

Chapter XXIII. Villager’s One Cow 123

Chapter XXIV. The Milk Farm 127

Chapter XXV. Ailments and Remedies 131

Chapter XXVI. Round-up 141

i Index 144

i 147387

LIST OF COLORED PLATES.

PLATE

I-

Jersey Cow.

PLATE

II.

Guernsey Cow.

PLATE

III.

Ayrshire Cow.

PLATE

IV.

Holstein-Friesian Cow.

PLATE

V.

Hereford Cow.

PLATE

VI.

Shorthorn Cow.

PLATE

VII.

Galloway Cow.

PLATE

VIII.

Red Polled Cow.

“ The lowing herd winds slowly o'er the lea.'

PREFACE.

The dairy business is un-
dergoing rapid changes the
world over ; nowhere more
rapidly than in America. The
invention and perfection of the
separator have hastened the es-
tablishment of the factory sys-
tem, and the creamery is in suc-
cessful operation everywhere.

Feeding has been reduced
to a simple and exact science
as a result of the joint work of agricultural chemists
and practical dairymen. The silo is appearing on
farm after farm. The silage crops will presently in-
crease in number, and will include peas and beans as
well as corn and other grasses.

The bacteria of ferments have been subjected to
commercial harness, and put to work. Butter flavor
is under control.

Reliable milk testing apparatus is on the market,
and fat percentages can be ascertained quickly and
cheaply.

The science of cattle breeding is receiving more
and more attention, and we now have a considerable
number of herd books on this side of the Atlantic.

8

PREFACE.

There will be a steady improvement in American dairy
stock from this time forward.

No ambitious young American need be ashamed
to choose dairying for a profession, for it is as much
of a profession in fact as any calling now practised in
this country. It takes good brains, good judgment
and long experience to make the most of it. Dairying
has a great future, I am sure, and it need not be cast
aside even by young men who have promised them-
selves future fame and riches. It is a noble calling.

There has been a great awakening to the fact that
the dairy cow is a most reliable source of farm profits.
Dairy profits are in one sense small, but they are
unremitting. There is never an interruption in the
demand for wholesome human food. Total dairy
products of the United States far outrival the gold out-
put of all the mines of the world.

The publishers ask me to extend their thanks
to D. H. Goodell, O. D. Munn, S. Mather & Sons,
W. M. Beninger, Ezra Michener, K. B. Armour,
Smiths & Powell Co., J. D. Avery, S. M. Winslow,
J. Cheston Morris, M. D., S. P. Clarke, Moseley &
Stoddard Mfg. Co. , and other kind friends who have
furnished them with photographs of the breeds in
which they are interested. Nearly all the illustrations
of animals are reproductions of photographs. The
colored plates were painted by a skilled live stock artist,
and faithfully show the leading breeds they represent.

May every cow owner find this little book to be a
guide and helper in the coming years. J. B.

Reference Chart

Showing Parts of the External Cow.

o

Poll

17

Escutcheon

I

Neck

18

Udder

2

Jugular Gutter

19

Hip Joint

3

Muzzle

20

Flank

4

Withers

21

Stifle-joint

5

Dewlap

22

Hock

6

Point of Shoulder

23

Point of Hock

7

Back

24

Cannon

8

Forearm

25

Foot

9

Knee

26

Coronet

IO

Cannon

27

Claw

ii

Shoulder

28

Ergot

12

Side of Chest

29

Croup

13

Angle of Haunch

30

Belly

14

Root of Tail

31

Elbow

15

Tail

32

Buttock.

16

Switch

THE NOON HOUR.

Chapter I.

STATISTICS.

“ The cattle upon a thousand hills V

Great is the dairy cow !
Hail to her ! But if she give
less than 5000 pounds of milk
per year, or 200 pounds of
butter, away with her ! She
is not profitable.

And yet the average cow of the United States
gives less than 2800 pounds of milk per year.

There are fifteen to twenty millions of dairy cows
in the United States ; and enough other cattle to make
a grand total of over fifty million head. This, of
course, includes bulls, oxen, young stock, and the
great herds of steers which roam the plains of the
West.

There are about half a million thoroughbreds in
the country, eight million (half or higher) grades,
and more than forty million “ scrubs,’ ’ so called. (I
prefer to speak of them as natives ; and yet some of
them are “scrubs” in fact.)

There are about fifteen million calves born every
year in the United States.

The average value of the dairy cow, take the
country over, is only about $22.50. Curiously enough,

12

BIGGLE COW BOOK.

the smallest state in the Union has the highest priced
cows — $38.33, average. This tells of good dairying in
Rhode Island.

As to the total dairy and beef products of the
United States, per annum, the figures are so large as
to be bewildering. The gold-hunters find only two
hundred million a year, while a single by-product of
American cattle (the manure) is rated as worth more
than that amount of money ! It is surer than gold, too.

The cows of the United States yield five thousand
million gallons of milk per year, the butter product
is a billion pounds, and the product of cheese two
hundred and fifty million pounds — grand figures,
indeed, and enough to make us vain.

But to be officially informed that we send abroad
more oleomargarine than butter does not lead to
vanity but toward mortification. The 4,500,000 farms
of the United States should be flavoring Europe’s
bread with good butter and cheese.

There are now about 5000 creameries and cheese
factories in the United States. They have sprung up,
for the most part, within a quarter of a century, and
their number is rapidly increasing. Dairying, as a
business, is making rapid strides in this country.

Chapter II.

BREEDS.

The thoroughbred animal is a good home missionary ; it
teaches a better way. — Tim.

The more important of the thoroughbred cattle in
the United States are here briefly described.

Full descriptions of the points which are con-
sidered essential in judging the different breeds are
usually to be found in the herd books issued by the
respective breeders’ associations. A list of the pres-
ent secretaries of the leading clubs and associations
will be found at the end of the book.

Jersey. Origin, Channel Islands.
Average weight of cow, 800 pounds.
Purpose, butter. Color, “gray-fawn
and white, yellow-fawn and white,
gray-dun and white, gray and white,
silver-gray dun, cream-color, fawn,’’
etc. Often dark-colored on nose and legs. The Jersey
is characterized by “neatness of form, slender frame,
deer-like head, and gentleness.’’ No cow is higher in
American favor. See colored Plate I.

“ Of all the creatures the farm can boast , —

And in my time I've seen a host , —

The dearest one to me I trow.

And pet of the place, is our Jersey cow."

14

BIGGLE COW BOOK.

Guernsey. Origin, Channel Islands. Average
weight of cow, 900 pounds. Purpose, butter. Color,
an irregular yellow and white, or red and white,

or sometimes of solid
colors, or nearly so.
Coarser in frame and
less beautiful than the
Jersey, but her equal
in percentage of butter
fat and her superior in
quantity of milk. A

LEMON-COLORED GUERNSEY BULL. gent]e CQW Qf highest

dairy merit. Shown in colored Plate II.

The Channel Islands cattle, both Guernsey and
Jersey, are of the very highest value to the butter
maker. They are also in demand among milk pro-
ducers, being used to “ color up ” or make yellow the
milk of other breeds.

These cattle are built upon the triangle plan —
heavy and deep behind and rather light in front ; the
milking type. They are characterized by yellow skins,
the color being particularly noticeable inside the ears.
They breed early.

The Channel Islands cattle have been bred pure,
it is said, for five hundred years ; and it is unlawful to
carry any living bull, of any breed, to these islands.

Alderney was a name formerly, but not now,
applied to the Channel Islands cattle, especially the
Jerseys.

Ayrshire. Origin, County of Ayr, Scotland.
Weight of cow, 900 pounds. Purpose, dairy. Color,
usually red or brown and white, in large patches.

BREEDS.

15

Sometimes all red or brown ; sometimes black and
white. An old breed. She has been called “ the rent-
payer.”

This cow is hardy. Her admirers claim she will
produce a larger quantity
of good milk for the food
consumed than any other
breed. She is classed as
a cheese cow rather than
as a butter cow, though
also a good butter maker.

A beautiful Ayrshire is
shown in colored Plate III. Ayrshire bull.

Holstein-Friesian. Origin, Denmark, Ger-
many, Holland. Weight of cow, 1200 to 1400 pounds.
Purpose, milk, cheese ; though also used for butter.
Color, usually black and white. A noble race. The
name is a compromise, now
including blood from several
former families. The typical
Holstein-Friesian is well
known. This breed has
probably the highest milk
record in the world for quan-
a prize holstein. tity, and an effort is in prog-
ress for the improvement of the quality. A famous
Holstein cow is painted in colored Plate IV.

Hereford. Origin, England. Weight of cow,
1200 to 1400 pounds. Purpose, milk, cheese, beef.
Color, a distinct red, not too dark ; white face, mane,
breast and belly ; white end to tail, and white legs as
high as knee and hock.

i6

HIGGLE COW BOOK.

This is a breed of great antiquity and recognized
merit. The Herefords are good but not deep milkers.
As beef makers they are at the top of the market.
They are hardy, and well adapted to cold climates.
A prize winning cow is shown in colored Plate V.

Shorthorn. Formerly called Durham. Ori-
gin, England. Weight of cow, 1200 to 1600 pounds.
Purpose, milk, cheese, beef. Color, roan, white, red,
white and red ; but not in spots. See the roan type
in colored Plate VI.

The breed is comparatively modern, and is in
| high favor in England and in
| certain parts of the United
I States. The Shorthorn is
|| without a rival for beef, and
| has been bred up to a good
milking standard. She is
unrivaled for cheese making.

SHORTHORN BULL.

When bred strictly for beef the ideal Shorthorn
assumes the shape of a parallelogram, from what-
ever point viewed.

Devon. Of English origin. Weight of cow (there
are two strains in America)

1000 to 1200 pounds. Pur-
pose, milk, beef. Color, a
rich dark red.

The milk of the Devon
is said to be especially a-
dapted for human food, par-
ticularly the food of infants.

The Devons are smaller than the Shorthorns and
Herefords, but larger than the Ayrshires and Channel

‘TAURUS,” A FAMOUS DEVON.

BREEDS.

1 7

Islands cattle. The udder is comparatively small, and
the milk yield usually above what would be expected.
The milking period is long. Devon beef has a high
reputation. The breed is an old one.

Aberdeen-Angus. Polled Angus, Polled Aber-
deen-Angus. A hornless breed, of Scotch origin.
Weight of cow, 1300 or 1400 pounds. Purpose, milk,,
beef. Bred pure for three-quarters of a century. Black.

Considerable numbers have come to the United
States, and are now advertised by their breeders.
They hold high rank for certain purposes, especially
for beef. This breed, when exposed to winter weather,
develops an excellent coat that makes a warm carriage
robe when properly tanned.

Dutch Belted. Origin, Plolland. Weight of
cow, 1200 pounds. Purpose, dairy products, beef.

A DUTCH BELTED GROUP.

Color, black and white, the white being in a blanket
around the body.

This belted stock is beautiful, but its standard of
purity appears to be in part a matter of fancy.

Galloway. Of Scotch origin. Weight of cow,

i8

BIGGLE COW BOOK.

1250 pounds. Purpose, milk and beef. Color, black
with brownish tinge. See colored Plate VII.

The Galloways are a polled or hornless breed,
especially adapted to cold, exposed countries, as they
are very hardy. They are bred in the United States
and advertised in the agricultural papers. These hardy
animals have thick coats of hair.

Red Polled. Of English origin. Weight of
cow, 1300 or 1400 pounds. Purpose, beef, milk,
cheese. Pure bred for a century. Color, a deep red,

THREE YOUNG ONES AND THEIR FATHER.

with udder of the same color ; but tip of tail may be
white. Nose not dark or cloudy.

This hornless breed was formerly known as Nor-
folk Polled or Suffolk Polled. The Red Polled cattle
are adapted to severe winters, and are growing in
favor in the northern and western portions of the
United States. The Red Polled cow does not mature
as early as the smaller breeds. See colored Plate VIII.

Brown Swiss. Origin, Switzerland. Weight
of cow, 1200 to 1300 pounds. Purpose, dairy products.
Color, dun or mouse, fading to gray on back, with a
strip of light gray or nearly white along the belly.

There are two varieties of Swiss cattle in the
United States, commonly known as the brown and

BREEDS.

19

the spotted. The Brown Schwytzer was imported in
1869, and at once made a good record. The Simmen-
thal (Simmenthaler) or Bernese cow is a larger animal,
and differently marked, hav-
ing irregular and sharply de-
fined spots or bars of red,
yellow or drab. This breed
has a high repute for useful-
ness as work oxen, and is an
excellent strain for the dairy.

The American Holderness breed (first herd
book published in 1880) is said to have wholly
descended from an imported bull and cow of Holder-
ness stock from Yorkshire, England.

The best pedigree for the poor man is performance. — John Tucker.

Native. More than nine-tenths of the cows of
the United States are so-called natives or scrubs. The
latter term is widely used in the West and South; the
jLtxZ' former is a better name,

" more applicable to a useful

Our native cow is the
iff i . . product of various Euro-

.. pean importations. Cattle

were brought here in 1609
from the West Indies; in 1625 from Holland; in 1627
from Sweden; in 1631 from Denmark. The old Den-
marks were light yellow; the Dutch black and white;
the Spanish and Welsh generally black; the Devons
red. The latter were the foundation stock in some
states. Denmark crossed with Spanish made a dark

20

BIGGLE COW BOOK.

brindle. Denmark and Devon made a light brindle.
The Shorthorn blood enters largely into the native
stock in many localities. Of course a mixed ancestry
means an uncertain progeny. A valuable native cow
may or may not produce a calf of equal merit, but a
good thoroughbred bull will make a good calf a
reasonable probability.

SCRUBS.

Breed with a purpose — a 5000 pound purpose
at least.

A poor butter cow may sometimes be used
as a foster mother for calves.

The polled (hornless) bulls are likely to
produce hornless calves.

Test the milk before buying the cow.

A good pedigree will not atone for lack of
care.

Animals are best imported at the age of one year.

Away with all pensioners, all scrubs, all unprofitable

boarders.

A scrub with a pedigree is a worse scrub than the scrub
without a pedigree.

Milk quality is said to depend on breed, and milk quantity
on feed.

The worst kind of a scrub is a scrub milker.

LIBRARY

UNIVERSITY Of ILLINOIS
URIANA

PLATE I.

JERSEY COW.

Chapter III.

THE BULL.

The bull is half the herd. — Old Saying.

To raise thoroughbreds is one
thing ; to breed up a herd of native
or grade cattle for dairy purposes
or for beef is another thing. To
succeed in the latter work requires
a distinctly-defined purpose and an
unwavering adherence to that purpose.

The first thing is to get a good bull. The
next is to know each cow of the herd mathemati-
cally; to be certain of her yield in pounds and in butter
fat. The removal of the unprofitable cow is a great
step in the right direction.

The selection of the bull should begin with the
selection of his grandparents. He should be a
thoroughbred and the offspring of good milkers.

A heifer head on a bull is not the right sort.
A bull should have a bull’s head.

The young bull is fit for service at sixteen
months, but should be used the first year on not
more than a dozen cows. The second year the
number of cows may be doubled.

It is far better to keep a really good, thoroughbred
bull, and to charge $5 for his use, and thus limit him,
than to charge only $1 for more frequent service.

Bulls become dangerous, usually, because of
unexpended muscular energy ; and light work adds

22

BIGGLE COW BOOK.

not only to their docility but to their prepotency.
Exercise is not merely good for them, but actually
necessary for their health, but do not let them run
in the pasture with the cows, as most farmers do.

The bull should be stabled apart from the cows
with direct access to the service yard or pen. This
should be surrounded by a high board fence. Do
not keep him in solitary confinement in some dark,
dirty pen.

For work or for exercise a so-called one-horse
powTer is a good machine ; and the
bull’s strength may be turned to use-
ful account. Or the animal may
be broken to harness, and made
to draw a cart. But excessive
work is as harmful as ex-
cessive idleness. The age
limit of usefulness is regula-
ted by health and strength.
how is this? Never trust a bull. It is

the harmless bull that generally does harm, as it is
the gun not loaded that kills.

DON’T.

Don’t pet the bull. Don’t trust even a muley.

Don’t deny the bull some sort of a gymnasium.

Don’t keep the scrub bull out of the beef barrel very long.

Don’t expect a bull to regard a fence as strong until he has
failed to knock it down.

Don’t permit a snapping cur to worry the bull and frighten the
cows.

Don’t defer dehorning the bull until he has killed somebody
(as my neighbor did).

Chapter IV.

MOTHER COW.

The cow is the personality of motherhood. Her owner should
never forget this. — John Tucker.

Whether it is better to
raise cows or to buy them
is an open question. Both
plans are practised by suc-
cessful dairymen. It is
thought by some that it is
better and cheaper to buy fresh cows from drovers,
sell the calves, work the animals at high pressure as
long as they yield a given amount of milk, and then
sell them for what they will bring, replacing them
with fresh cows from the drover.

This plan has many advocates among good dairy-
men; yet it has many objections in practice.

The other method, that of raising the heifer calves,
may or may not be more profitable, but it is certainly
more scientific. Buying may demand more wit, but
breeding demands more brains.

The cow’s period of pregnancy is slightly variable,
but 280 days may be given as an average, with a few
days additional in case of a male calf. The breeding
period occurs at intervals of twenty or twenty-one days.

Service in December or January will produce
calves in September or October; and this is a very
good time for the winter dairy.

24

BIGGLE COW BOOK.

The sfnaller breeds of cattle arrive at maturity earl-
ier than the larger breeds. Jerseys have been bred at
the age of seven months, but ten to fifteen months is bet-
ter. This brings the heifer into profit at the age of two
years. The heavy breeds reach maturity a year later.

During pregnancy the heifer or cow should be
well and wisely fed. The quantity must supply two
lives; the quality must favor growth and development
of the unborn calf, to say nothing of the milk supply.
For some time before calving the food supply must be
reduced. This is in recognition
of the fact that the growth of
the calf has been practically
completed, that the milk yield
is to cease, and that certain
great changes are in progress.
The nourishment of the foetus
through the umbilical cord is
her first born. to end, and the production of
milk in the mammary glands is to begin.

It is well for cows in milk to be dried off a
month or six' weeks before calving. This is best
accomplished by cutting off the supply of milk-pro-
ducing food and milking only once a day. Hay may
be given freely, but not much grain.

The birth of the calf is usually an event involving
no especial pain or difficulty to the parent cow, but in
the presence of alarming symptoms a veterinarian
must be called in. Ordinarily it is safe to trust the
whole operation to nature.

Give each cow a box stall at least two weeks
before calving, where she can be warm and quiet.

MOTHER COW.

25

The dam will lick dry her offspring and the calf
will usually go to sucking of its own accord. The
careful dairyman will, however, try to keep an eye
on important events of this character, since accidents
sometimes happen.

The first milk of the cow is of a peculiar character.
It is especially designed by nature to act as a pur-
gative, and thus put the bowels of the young calf in
perfect working condition. The first milk is called
colostrum.

It is advised by some dairymen not to milk the
cow dry for a few days after calving, because by so
doing, you cause an unnatural flow of the milk, and all
sorts of complications ensue.

The milk of the cow is generally considered fit for
human food four days after the birth of the calf.

A mature cow may safely drop a calf once a year,
but a heifer should be allowed a considerable period
of rest between the time of drop-
ping her first calf and her next
period of gestation. This rest
will aid in her growth and ma-
turity and will help to fix upon
her character the habit of milk-
ing. If the first calf is dropped when the heifer is two
years old, let the next be dropped when she is three
and a half years old.

Warm water (90°) is advisable for cows im-
mediately after calving. A little bran in the water is
often used; or bran may be given separately. The
cow should be kept on dry straw, and should be
allowed to come to her appetite very gradually. Com-

harriet’s pet.

26

BIGGLE COW BOOK.

mon sense should be depended on largely during the
critical period after calving. Avoid cold water, cold
wind, wet bedding, overfeeding. Make the cow com-
fortable, and watch her bag. If her bowels stubbornly
fail to move, Epsom salts must be used. But it is
better to have the cow in such good condition that
nature will do most of the work.

The term of a cow’s usefulness is a thing of fact,
not theory. High pres-
sure will exhaust a cow

care will prolong her life.
wedge shape. Drove cows are some-

times worn out in three years, while home-bred cows
may last three or four times as long.

The accepted type of the milk cow is the wedge;
that is, deep behind, with light shoulders and head.

The accepted type of the beef cow is the parallel-
ogram; that is, the “brick-set-on-edge” form.

It must be borne in mind
that each and every type of
cow may be the best; no
dairyman can judge for

another dairyman. brick-set-on-edge type.

Then, again, there are individual cows which
differ in their products widely from the generally
accepted family type, as certain Jerseys which pro-
duce a great volume of milk and certain Holsteins
which produce a heavy yield of butter. It shows
the possible power of the breeder over the animal.
The important thing is to breed persistently for a
definite purpose.

MOTHER COW.

27

The external cow is worthy of study as typical of
merit or demerit. The head should be comparatively
small and limbs slender. The
neck should be rather long, in
harmony with the idea of good
grazing qualities. The back
should be straight, eyes promi-
nent and bright, belly large and
deep, tail slender, udder large,
teats large and set well apart,
milk vein prominent, hair soft,
a well-set udder, and skin pliable. It is natural to
expect a yellow skin inside the ear and on the extreme
tip of the tail in all cows giving richly-colored milk.
The color of the horns is not essential.

The internal cow is no matter of fancy or fashion.
She must have good teeth, good stomachs and a good
udder. She may be a milk pro-
ducer or a beef producer or a com-
bination of the two ; but without
digestive ability she is next to
nothing.

There was a theory quite widely
promulgated a few years ago and
not yet obsolete for judging the
value of dairy cows by the so-called
escutcheon or milk-mirror. It is
called the Guenon theory. It de-
pends upon a view of the rear of escutcheon of a
the udder and adjacent parts. A GOOD BUTTER BULL-
perfect escutcheon, indicative of a high grade dairy
cow, demands a large udder to begin with, accom-

28

BIGGLE COW BOOK.

panied by certain growth and arrangement of the ad-
jacent hair on the flanks.

That there is something in the Guenon theory need
not be denied; but if so good an authority as Governor
Hoard says that it is of no practical use to him it is
scarcely worth while to expect much of it in ordinary
dairying.

Dehorning cattle is now more or less widely prac-
tised in the United States, and there are several horn-
less breeds getting a wide foothold in the country.

NO HORNS HERE.

Horns may be bred off altogether, after a time. It
seems to be feasible to produce polled cattle of any
desired type.

Every dairy should have a milk standard, and
every cow should come up to the standard or get out
of the herd. A yearly product of 5000 pounds of
milk is low enough; 6000 or 7000 pounds is better.

Remember the old saying about the profits being
in the top of the pail.

MOTHER COW.

29

COWSLIPS.

The cow is not a race horse.

Treat the nervous cow gently.

A low voice makes a quiet cow.

Do not water the cow in the icy creek.

If ’tis currycomb for horse it should be currycomb for cow.

A barbed-wire fence is a poor December wind-break for cows.

Old advice but excellent : Speak to a cow as you would to a
lady.

More “ Come, bossy,” and less “ Get around there,” will fill the
pail.

The barking dog and the cow’s heels should be kept wide
apart.

Let the cows pasture at night in fly-time ; stable them in the
daytime.

The cow in heat should not be turned in the same pasture
with the others.

In buying a dairy cow from a dairyman, it is safe not to take
the seller’s pick.

If the stable is cold at calving time blanket the cow after the
birth of the calf, and the calf too.

A cow’s milk should amount each year to five times her own
weight. Do not be contented with less.

Which way does the hair stand on your cows? A cow that
has to work for her food will return no profit.

A carefully made test proves that in some cases excitement
robs the milk of more than one-half its butter.

Count no cow handsome that does not daily produce at least
a one-pound print. Many cows are making two.

It is a foolish notion to stint the rations of a dry cow. She
needs to build up after a period of generous milking.

Remember that bacteria swarm in the cellar as well as in the
cow stable. A careless housekeeper is as blamable as a careless
dairyman.

Fat globules are small — millions to the quart. But do not be
frightened; they are weighed, not counted. Be sure to have
at least 4% pounds of them in every 100 pounds of milk.

“ The friendly cow all red and white,

I love with all my heart ;

She gives me cream with all her might
To eat with apple-tart.”

THE HAPPY DAYS OF YOUTH.

Chapter V.

BABY.

Too much is expected of a calf a day old ; it does not know
much; how could it? — Harriet.

True is it that if the calf is not
fed suitable food and regularly it
will not do its best. And if it fail
to do its best as a calf its useful-
ness when mature will be impaired.
The best food for the calf is new milk, nature’s own
provision. When beginning life it needs a peculiar
physic, gradually lessening in intensity the first few
days. This the new-milch cow supplies, and it should
be given the new calf, always.

To teach the Baby to drink is easier than many
suppose. A small quantity of milk and a large supply
of patience and perseverance mixed are the requisites.
Take a quart of milk in an eight or ten
quart pail, give it two of your fingers to
suck air between, and by degrees lower
its nose into the pail, for by nature it
points it skyward. After it finds it can
draw milk instead of air between the fin-
gers it will not be long in relaxing its
neck muscles. After a little it may be
weaned from the fingers. If it will not drink at first
it must be left for a few hours to increase its appetite.

32

BIGGLE COW BOOK.

If new milk cannot be spared after three days,
skimmilk may be substituted, but this must be done
judiciously, particularly at first. A sudden change
from new milk to a substitute must not be made. A
half-pint of skimmilk must be put in the mess, and day
by day it must be increased until skimmilk is fed
entirely. It is well also to change the calf from sweet

FEEDING THE CALVES.

to sour milk, particularly if it is to be reared during
hot weather when it is not always possible to keep the
milk sweet. Calves fed on sour milk do as well as
those reared on sweet milk, and run no risk of several
of the diseases incident to calfhood. Changing from
one to the other is a fertile source of trouble.

Good calves may be raised on buttermilk alone,
but they should not run to grass while living upon it,
hay being kept by them, thus avoiding the prevalence
of scours. It is best to give calves some liquid food
from the pail, for at least three months. Besides this
they should learn to eat as soon as possible, when a
little middlings in a shallow trough may be given
daily, together with other food.

Where it is not convenient to get milk to raise a
calf it may be brought up successfully on hay tea.
Boil cut clover hay in water until its strength is

BABY.

33

extracted. Wean the calf from milk to this tea pre-
cisely as if it were skimmilk. Whatever the food,
however, remember there is more danger in overfeed-
ing than in underfeeding. Too much is usually the
cause of that enemy of the calf, scours or diarrhoea, as
a remedy for which nothing equals starvation. But
prevention is far better than cure; and never lose sight
of the axiom that a growing animal should never be
allowed to stop growth until matured in the most
thorough manner. Never fatten a young animal you
expect to raise.

To make veal in the simplest manner is to let the
calf suck or to feed the warm or new milk five to eight
weeks. But this is also the most expensive
way. To sell butter fats and at the same S
time sell veal requires a stroke of genius,
but some are doing it to their great W

profit and satisfaction. A calf must [ r

be a prodigy to pay fifteen to twenty ^Vn , ^1

cents per pound for butter fats, and
only rich men can afford to feed such A little shaky
expensive foods. yet.

A common practice is to replace cream with flax-
seed jelly ; that is to feed calves with skimmilk to
which flaxseed jelly has been added. Of the jelly use
half a teacupful in the milk at each meal, increasing it
slowly until a pint is fed in the skimmilk twice per
day. ' To make the jelly, boil one pound of whole flax-
seed in water until a thick paste results. It needs no
straining, and only to be kept cold while it lasts.
Some have good results by carefully using corn meal
or oat meal instead of the flaxseed.

34

BIGGLE COW BOOK.

When feeding grain to calves in connection with
skimmilk, a little point worth remembering is to put
the grain in the pail after pouring in the milk. It
seems to mix better with the milk than if put in the
bottom of the pail and the milk poured on top of it.

The most profitable veal is made in four to five
weeks, every added day after this increasing the cost
per pound rapidly.

Fall calves have a distinct advantage over calves
beginning life in the spring. Given warm, clean quar-
ters and better care than the hurry of the summer will
permit, they become strong and their digestion lusty
before the season when flies annoy and the sun be-
comes too hot for comfort. Such calves dropped in
the early fall and given the right of way all winter
resemble, in the spring, yearlings dropped the previous
spring.

CALF WISDOM.

Skimmilk has nearly all the protein of the new milk ; and
protein is the muscle and tissue builder. s

Good calves are real mortgage .

lifters. ’ ^

Feed no mouldy hay or grain to
calves.

Coax the calves ; make pets of
them.

Teach the calf to lead.

Keep the baby dry. shelter for calves.

The new calf will begin to eat hay at a week old. You
couldn’t do it.

The infant should be a little hungry three times a day.

Keep the young calves in pens separate from the older ones.

PLATE II.

GUERNSEY COW

Chapter VI.

THE HEIFER.

You can grow a better cow during the first two years of a
calf's life than in all the time after that— Tim.

It is quite as important to feed
a well-balanced ration to a heifer
as to a cow in milk. A balanced
ration is not a theory but a way
of making every food unit count
for the utmost. About 1:4.8 is
right for the heifer; rich in protein because the animal
is forming tissue rapidly.

You can’t win a heifer without wooing her ; and
unless she confides in you there is trouble ahead. Pet
her every day now, and you will gain time and milk
and save vexation when she calves.

Be careful not to dry the young cows in milk when
stabling them for the winter. Milk them clean, pam-
per their appetites and be good to them. If they will
milk right through to calving, all the better. A heifer
easily learns to dry off early, and will ever after re-
member the trick. When mature she will be profitable
eleven months in the year, when she might be kept at
a loss if dry three to five months.

The wrinkles grow on the horns of cattle when
they are going on three years of age, and when three
years old there is generally one well defined wrinkle

36

BIGGLE COW BOOK.

around the horns close to the head. The next year
there are two, and one additional every year. These
wrinkles denote the age, counting the first one three.

A PRETTY PARTY.

When calves are born in the autumn and stunted, the
wrinkles get out of order and are not reliable as to
age. On well raised calves the rule is about certain.

FRISKIES.

To scratch a nervous heifer between her fore legs has a won-
derfully soothing effect.

A cow well broken to the halter, and gentle, is worth much
more than one that is unmanageable.

Do not permit heifers to be worried, alarmed or annoyed.

Heifers are timid. They need reassurance.

The well-fed, well-stabled, well-trained heifer literally grows
into money.

Have heifers that are worth raising, and then treat them
accordingly.

The heifer becomes a cow at two years of age, and is then
self-supporting.

Chapter VII.

THE OX.

There is no richer autumn picture than an ox-cart loaded
with golden corn. — Harriet.

Let us train the steers ; go at it
gently, one at a time. August is a
good time to select or match up steers
and to train them. Any odd times
when work is not pressing may thus be made profit-
able. Put him on the barn floor if you have no other
place. Take a whip with a long stock and a short lash
and stand in the middle of the floor and drive the
steer around you. Never strike him a hard blow.
Tell him to go on, and let him go on till he goes around
well. Then teach him to stop at the word whoa.

When the word is given touch him on the forehead
with the whip rapidly until he stops; then brush him a
little and give him a nubbin of corn. Kindness goes
a great ways. Keep
him from getting exci-
ted. Y ou can do nothing
with a crazy steer. Give
one lesson a day to each
steer.

The second day teach
him to haw. This is done

by first stopping him as a famous yoke, “joe” and
before, and then gently “jerry.” total weight 7300 lbs.
tapping him on the oh hip. Reverse this training

38

BIGGLE COW BOOK.

to gee and walk around his head to turn him. After
each steer, by itself, has learned these rudiments of its
education, then put them both together in the yoke in
the same place and do not let them run, but walk
around together. Teach them to stop together at the
word, to haw and gee , and back up. This lesson should
be taught singly and a day taken for it. Some people
try to teach a steer everything in one day, and then
make them used to the yoke, and make runaways of
them at the same time, by putting the yoke on them and
letting them run. When thus broken oxen can never be
depended upon. They will get excited easily and away
they will go pell-mell and nothing can stop them.

GADS.

Older than the Pyramids is the use of the ox.

The ox, though not swift, is pretty sure.

The man who has never used a good yoke of oxen has never
fully enjoyed farm life.

Little yokes for little oxen ; big yokes for big oxen.

If the oxen are the least bit thin feed them up well before
plowing time. It will pay.

Do you notice how well good Devon steers sell when well
broken ?

Shoes are indispensable to oxen during icy terms, and are
profitable insurance against accident.

Abandon the barbarous ox-yoke and use a
harness like the accompanying cut. The pa-
tient ox will be more useful and will do much
more work in this humane outfit, and be free
from galls and sores.

Chapter VIII.

FOOD AND DRINK.

Profits are near the top of the milk pail. — Dorothy Tucker.

Water cows after feeding.

Feed regularly what each cow will
eat up clean, always giving the heaviest
feeding at night.

It is easier to keep a cow in a
profitable condition, than to get her
a good milk back to it if allowed to run down.

machine. Do not let the cows eat horse

manure; it will make the butter bitter.

A little linseed meal keeps the intestines of all stock
open, and they thrive better as a result.

The cow’s stomach is a mighty poor filter for
filthy water.

No single food is calculated for a complete butter
food. Clover hay comes the nearest to a complete
butter food.

This chapter is on food and drink, but it should be
understood at the outset that big results are impossible
with poor cows. There must be a high standard of
productive ability and the pensioners must go. There
must be a thoroughbred bull or the dairy will not in-
crease in output from year to year, but will remain
stationary, or will retrograde.

The American dairyman is blessed with a long list
of available cattle foods, but his best policy is always

4o

BIGGLE COW BOOK.

to use his home products as a feeding basis, buying
only what is necessary to balance the ration.

The phrases nutritive ratio, well balanced ration,
etc., are not hard to understand for those who try.

The agricultural chemist has learned that the tis-
sue-producing elements of the food must bear a cer-
tain proportion to the energy and heat-producing ele-
ments of the food. This proportion is . called the
nutritive ratio. It should be as one to five and one-
half, or one to six, varying with age, etc. Destroy
or ignore this proportion and there is a loss of money,
and good food goes to the dung pile, undigested and
wasted.

Speaking technically, the elements in cattle feeds
are protein, carbohydrates, fats, fibre, ash, water, etc.
We are concerned with the first three; and the digest-
ible protein must be in the proportion of one to five,
or one to six, as compared with the sum of the digest-
ible carbohydrates and fats. The dairyman need not
concern himself about fibre, ash, water, etc. They
are always present.

Protein is a name applied to a group of nitrogen-
ous substances. It furnishes, in brief, the material
for tissue building. It enters largely into the muscles,
blood, milk, tendons, nerves, skin, hair, wool. It also
has some heat-producing power, but it is mainly a
maker of tissue.

The carbohydrates (sugars, starches, gums) and
the fats have to do with building up the fat of animals,
and are necessary for the production of heat and the
maintenance of energy and motion. Their heat-pro-
ducing power is measured in calories. A calory is the

FOOD AND DRINK.

41

amount of heat required to raise the temperature of a
pound of water four degrees Fahrenheit.

The protein makes the engine and the boiler; the
carbohydrates and fat are the fuel.

Fat is reckoned to be worth two and one-quarter
times the carbohydrates in ability to produce heat
and motive power within the body.

Nutritive ratio is merely the proportion of protein
to carbohydrates plus fat; the fat being multiplied by
two and one-quarter and added to the carbohydrates.

Tables of the digestible ingredients of all feed-
ing stuffs are now published by the Government
and by most of the stations, and can be had free
of cost. Every dairyman should have such tables
at hand for frequent reference. It is not hard to learn
to use them.

American dairy practice differs slightly from Euro-
pean practice, but it is believed that the latter (the
German standard of Wolff) is more nearly correct.
Here are two standards, each intended to represent
the daily food of a cow weighing 1000 pounds.

Total

Organic

Matter

Digestible

Protein

Digestible

Carbo-

hydrates

Digestible

Fat

Fuel

Value

(Calories)

German (Wolff’s)
Wisconsin

24 lbs.
24.5ilbs.

2.50 lbs.
2.15 lbs.

12.50 lbs.
13.27 lbs.

.40 lbs.
.74 lbs.

29,590

31,250

The first standard is based upon experience and
science. The second (Wisconsin) merely represents
the average practice of 128 successful American dairy-
men. The German standard ratio is written 1:5.4.
The Wisconsin standard ratio is 1 : 6.9, and is regarded
as a little too wide; that is, rather excessive in carbo-

42

BIGGLE COW BOOK.

hydrates; not quite enough protein. When the protein
is in excess the ration is said to be too narrow.

Dairymen need not use technical terms, but it is
obvious that they must know what a good ration really
is, and why it is good.

Of course either of the above rations must be in-
creased or decreased in weight as the animal weighs
more or less than 1000 pounds.

Dairymen about to make up rations must take full
account of home-grown products. Whatever the farm
produces best and cheapest must be made the basis of
the dairy ration. It may be necessary to buy some-
thing to effect a “ balance,” but the necessity
for outside purchases is decreasing as dairy-
men better understand what the ration really
demands and what the farm may
supply. Protein is the article in which
the coarse fodders are generally defi-
cient, and protein is the most expen-
sive thing to buy. It is usually bought
in linseed meal, gluten meal, cottonseed meal, bran,
etc. ; and yet it can be easily grown at home in the
form of peas, soja beans, vetches, tares, clovers, etc.
Protein is nitrogen in combination.

An almost perfectly balanced ration can be made
of these plants, in the form of hay, and if fed with a
small amount of grain for the sake of palatability they
can be made to save part of the cost of going to mill.

The following standards are the best now access-
ible to American dairymen. Balanced rations can
easily be made corresponding with them. The total
weight of ration is important, and must correspond

BACK FROM THE
DAIRY SCHOOL.

FOOD AND DRINK.

43

with weight of animal ; the weight of protein is impor-
tant; but the carbohydrates and fats may be varied
slightly, provided their sum total (with fat multiplied
by two and one-quarter) be about five and a half
times the weight of protein, since carbohydrates and
fat serve substantially the same purpose in the food.

In working with tables, in making up rations,
it is necessary to observe the terms “dry matter,”
“digestible protein,” “digestible carbohydrates,” “di-
gestible fat;” for these terms are intended in the
Wolff standard. (The total weight of a cow’s ration
of twenty-four pounds of dry matter varies greatly.
The dry matter in ioo pounds of ensilage amounts to
only about twenty pounds, while in ioo pounds of good
hay the dry matter amounts to nearly ninety pounds. )

WolfFs (German)
Feeding

Standards

per Day

I cr Average Live

^ Weight per Head

Total

5f (water free)

’ Organic Matter

Digestible

Food

Materials

Fuel value
(Calories)

Nutritive

Ratio

'53

0

£

lbs.

cr Carbo-
“ hydrates

fc

lbs.

Milk Cows

1000

24.0

2 5

12.5

.40

29,590

1: 54

Growing Cattle, 2 to 3mos.

150

3-3

0 6

2 1

•30

54l6

1: 4.6

“ 3 to 6mos.

300

7.0

1.0

4-1

•30

10,750

1: 4.8

“ 6toi2mos.

500

12.0

i-3

6.8

•30

16,332

1:58

“ i2toi8mos.

700

16.8

1 4

9.1

.28

20,712

1: 6.9

“ i8t0 24mos

850

20 4

1.4

10.3

.26

22,859

1:7.8

FatteningSteers,ist period,

1000

27.0

2-5

15 0

•50

34,660

1: 6.4

“ 2d period,

1000

26.0

3-o

14.8

.70

36,062

1: 5-5

“ 3d period,

1000

25.0

2.7

14 8

.60

35,082

1: 6.0

Oxen moderately worked

1000

24.0

1.6

1 1.3

•30

24,260

I: 74

Note. — Weight of ration up to 1000 pounds is actual; above
iooo pounds the weight of ration must be proportionably in-
creased. It will be noticed that the ratio of protein to carbohy-
drates and fats changes under different conditions, ages, etc.

44

BIGGLE COW BOOK.

To show the makeup of a good dairy ration (for
a cow weighing 1000 pounds), and to point out the
difference between actual weight and ‘ ‘ total dry mat-
ter,” a single example may be given. Any dairyman
can adapt a ration to his individual needs. It is an
easy, pleasant and profitable pastime. The printed
tables, as already stated, can be had free of cost from
the nearest experiment station or from the Agricultural
Department at Washington.

Ration for Dairy Cows

>>

Q <D

lbs.

$ Digestible

Y3 Protein

^ Digestible
Carbo-

hydrates

~ Digestible

Y1 Fat

Fuel Value

(Calories)

12 pounds clover hay ....

10.16

•79

4.24

.20

10,199

20 pounds corn silage ....

4.18

.11

2.36

•13

5443

4 pounds corn meal ....

340

.28

2.61

•13

5,92i

4 pounds wheat bran ....

3-54

.48

1.65

.11

4,446

4 pounds gluten meal . .

3-69

.82

i-75

•34

6,223

Total

24.97

2.48

12.61

.91

3T932

Wolff’s Standard . . .

24.00

1 2.50

12.50

.40

29,590

This ration is not offered as a model of economy.
In some locations it would be excellent; in other places
it would be too expensive. It shows the proper weight
of dry matter and nearly the proper proportion of pro-
tein to carbohydrates and fat for a cow in milk. The
nutritive ratio is about i : 5.9, which is a trifle too wide.
Still, it would be a good ration.

As to feeding stuffs (aside from natural pasture)
the American range is very large. The green fodders
embrace the whole list of grasses, sorghums, millets
and leguminous plants. The latter group (including
clovers, peas, beans, vetches, tares) is destined to play

FOOD AND DRINK.

45

an important part in dairying, as well as in green
manuring, on account of their wonderful ability to take
nitrogen from the atmosphere. They are adapted to
silage as well as to soiling purposes. Ambitious Amer-
ican dairymen would do well to give full attention to
the leguminous plants, as there is money in them both
as soil enrichers and as economic stock foods.

Corn fodder, both green and dry, is of great eco-
nomic importance to dairymen. It adds necessary
bulk to the ration, whether used dry or in the form of
ensilage. There are various good implements on the
market for cutting and shredding dry fodder, to make
it more available for stock feeding purposes.

Ensilage and root crops are briefly treated in other
chapters. The former has become essential, even in
comparatively small dairies. The latter source of suc-
culent food is worthy of increased attention; especially
carrots, mangels and sugar beets.

Grain is sometimes, not always, too expensive to
feed to dairy cattle. Wheat occasionally drops in price
to a point where it can be fed to advantage. Oats is
an excellent cow food, when ground and used as a
component of a ration. Corn fed whole is largely
wasted; and, indeed, it is often wasted when fed in the
form of meal in a poorly balanced ration. It is a heat-
producer rather than a milk maker. When the starch
has been taken out, making gluten meal of it, it is
quite a different article, as it is less heating, and has a
higher percentage of protein.

CONTENTMENT.

Chapter IX.

FOOD AND DRINK —Continued.

You can lead a cow to water , but the other cows may keep her
from drinking. — John Tucker.

A word as to the drink
of the dairy cow, after which
I will return to the food ques-
tion.

Careful experiments
show that cows will sometime^ drink as much as
seventy-five to one hundred and fifty pounds of water
per day if they have free access to it. The average
cow will perhaps drink ninety pounds, or say nearly
enough to fill a forty quart can every day.

To cut off the water supply is to cut off the milk
supply; and everybody knows how the master cows
intimidate the weaklings, and sometimes frighten them
away from the drinking trough.

The arguments are good for having water within
reach of every cow as she stands in. her stall. In this
way the timid animal is sure to get her fill.

The cow’s drinking water must be perfectly pure
and preferably cool ; cool enough to be palatable and
pure because much of the drink goes direct to the milk
pail. This is the legitimate way of watering milk.
Eighty-seven per cent, of milk being water, let it be
good water.

The judgment of a cow as to pure drinking water
is not to be trusted.

48

BIGGLE COW BOOK.

Returning to the subject of foods, I must speak of
ensilage, a thing now indispensable in profitable dairy-
ing, on account of excellence and cheapness.

Corn is the main ensilage crop in America. It
gains nothing by going through the silo, but neither
does it lose anything, and herein lies the profit. The
corn-stalks may perhaps gain somewhat in digest-
ibility ; but the great end secured is a permanent
supply of succulent food. It is as though the farmer
could bring to his cows freshly-grown corn-stalks
all winter.

The daily amount for a dairy cow is one cubic foot
of settled silage, weighing thirty-five to forty pounds.
Some feeders use fifty pounds, but a cubic foot is prob-
ably quite enough.

On this basis it is easy to figure out the size of a
contemplated silo. The cows will be stall-fed for say
200 days. It is therefore necessary to multiply 200 cubic
feet by the number of cows in the herd to learn the
requisite size of the silo. Or, stated in other terms,
an allowance may be made of four tons of silage per
cow per year.

A good wooden silo (perfectly round) can
be erected at an estimated cost of $1.25 to $2
per ton capacity. The cost of ensilage will
of course vary, but $1.50 per ton may be quoted
as an average.

Three tons of ensilage are approximately round
equal in carbohydrates and fat to a ton of red silo.
clover hay; but the protein is deficient, and must be
supplied in the form of bran or some other nitrogen-
bearing food.

FOOD AND DRINK.

49

Ensilage should be fed gradually at first, and after-
ward only as part of a well-balanced ration. When in-
telligently fed it is one of the most excellent and eco-
nomical foods within reach of the practical dairyman.

Future dairying will no doubt involve the use of
peas, beans and other leguminous plants for silage, on
account of the high percentage of protein which they
contain. Leading stock feeders are aware of the eco-
nomic value of these plants, and are beginning to use
them in ration making.

Of the many commercial articles available for
balancing cattle rations and supplying protein ( in which
ensilage and the coarse fodders are usually deficient)
the more common are linseed or cake meal, cottonseed
meal, gluten, glucose, brewers’ grains, wheat bran,
wheat shorts, etc.

These mill feeds are produced in such great num-
bers, and under so many names, that it is impossible for
me even to enumerate them in this little book. The
proper thing for a stock feeder to do is to get the tabu-
lated bulletins of the stations, and study the ingredients
of these foods in connection with their commercial cost.

The nutritive ratio of potatoes is about 1:12. A
good cow food can be made by the addition of cotton-
seed meal, bran, or other protein-bearing ingredient.
The advisability of feeding potatoes is largely a ques-
tion of economy, depending on market price.

Cottonseed meal, a by-product of the manufacture
of cottonseed oil, is very rich in protein.

Linseed meal, old process, is the by-product of
removing the oil of flaxseed by pressure. Linseed
meal, new process, is the result of removing the oil by

50

BIGGLE COW BOOK.

solvents. The latter contains a higher percentage of
protein.

As to cooking or steaming food for cattle, there is
little to recommend the practice except in case of
fodders where the palatability is increased by the
operation.

It is good practice, however, to cut hay and fod-
der, and sprinkle meal over it, and moisten with water,
and then mix thoroughly in a trough prepared for the
purpose. This makes a large bulk of palatable and
nutritious material.

And do not forget the salt.

Yet, after all, June pasturage is the
ideal cow food. It possesses succu-
lence, volume, nutrition. The nutritive
ratio of Kentucky blue grass (green
grass) is about i: 7, and of red clover short pasture.
about 1:5. Together they make rich pasturage.

The ration fed in the stable may be made as pala-
table, as succulent, and as productive of milk as the
best pasture of early summer.

When no pasture can be provided for the calves,
they can be picketed so as to have plenty of feed with-
out too cumbersome a rope, by having two picket pins
joined by a smooth wire, to which
by means of a swivel is attached
the calf’s rope so that it will slip on
> the wire. When new grass is nec-
' essary move the picket pins alter-
nately. The length of the wire will determine the
size of the grazing space.

FOOD AND DRINK.

51

A FEW ANALYSES.

Dry Matter and Digestible Food Ingredients in 100 pounds.

Dry

Matter

lbs.

Protein

lbs.

Carbo-

hydrates

lbs.

Fat

lbs.

Fuel

Value

Wheat bran

88.5

12.01

41.23

2.87

111,138

Corn meal

85.0

7.01

65.20

3.25

148,026

Oats

89.0

9-25

48.34

4.18

124,757

Gluten meal

91.2

25-49

42.32

10.38

169,930

Hominy chops ....

88.9

745

55-24

6.81

145,342

Malt sprouts

Brewers’ grains (dry)

89.8

18.72

43.50

1. 16

120,624

91-1

14-73

36.60

4.82

115,814

Cottonseed meal

91.8

37.01

16.52

12.58

152,653

Linseed meal, n. p. . .

89.8

27.89

36.36

2-73

131,026

Clover hay

84.7

6.58

35-35

1.66

84,995

Timothy hay

86.8

2.89

43-72

i-43

92,729

Mixed hay

87.1

4.22

43.26

i-33

93,925

Ensilage (corn) ....

20.9

.56

11.79

•65

25,7H

Corn fodder . . .

57-8

2.48

33.38

I-I5

7L554

Potatoes

21. 1

1.27

15.59

3L36o

Beets

13.0

1. 21

8.84

•05

18,904

Turnips

9-5

.81

6.46

.11

13,986

Mangels

9-i

1.03

5-65

.11

12,888

MIXED FEED.

Well-cured clover hay and some good yellow carrots — nothing
better for coloring butter.

Make a balanced ration (as near as may be) from home-grown
products. Cut down the bill for mill feed.

Clover hay is the dairyman’s mainstay.

Chopped apples and bran; try them.

Feed most what you can grow best.

All radical food changes must be made gradually.

Eight or ten cows will warrant a silo ; preferably a round one.
The best cows drink the most ; washy foods make washy milk.
Many a so-so cow can be made extra good with more food.
Never turn the stock out the first time when the grass is wet.
It may cause hoven or bloat.

A yell stops digestion and secretion.

“Where the bubbling water flows
As it through the meadow goes,

Where the grass is fresh and fine,

Pretty cow, go there and dine.”

CHESTER COUNTY STOCK BARN.

Chapter X.

THE BARN.

People who winter their cows out of doors on straw or poor
hay , are the ones who complain of hollow horn , and make this the
excuse for the wretched condition of their cattle. Got the hollow
horn! It would be the truth to say , got the hollow belly. — John
Tucker.

The location and construction of farm buildings
always depend so greatly upon conditions that there
can be no arbitrary rules. If the side of a hill with
south or east exposure can be secured, a gravity barn
may be built that will greatly save time and facilitate
the doing of chores. Occasionally a barn is made with
driveway into the gable, and thus all the hay and
silage are pitched down into bay or silo and down into
stable, the manure also going down into the cellar on
cart placed there. For storage barns the modern ten-
dency is for buildings of great height, to utilize as
much space as possible under small roof area, and to
build stock barns but one story to gain more light and
better ventilation.

To use the horse fork, which is a great time and
labor saver in barns on level ground, all
cross works should be avoided by the^
truss system shown in Fig. i. This brings
but trifling increase of cost and greater
strength. With a barn built so, the mows
may be laid out where one desires, and ^ FIG. 1/ '
when empty the floor is clear from end to end. A silo,

54

BIGGLE COW BOOK.

Erected

could be put in at one end if desired. The building
shown herewith illustrates an ingenious <Ji adaptation
of an old plan to modern requirements.

with basement to the yard, as j

was very common formerly, the wjj

basement to serve for
stabling or manure, a
cow stable of ten feet
posts has been placed i
in the yard. This per-
mits the little door at the end of the
store barn floor to be used as a chute, through which
the hay and stalks are passed to the cement floor of the
new stable. Then if that modern necessity in profitable
dairying, the silo, be adopted, and it is thought best to
place it in a part of the discarded basement, the ensilage
is handed into the stable very easily on car or barrow.
The plank barn is becoming very popular in parts
of the west. It is made entirely without heavy timbers,
plank being spiked or bolted together to make the
varying thicknesses required. It is made to break joints
carefully, and any length of beam or truss is thus se-
cured. Such timbers are easily shaped and prove
superior in strength to solid beams. Roofs nearly oval
or dome shape, and of great strength, may be made
that render a barn remarkably capa-
cious. What applies to barns is true
also for silos. This principle in building
doubtless has a great future.

This is a single illustration of sev-
. eral styles of bents of plank barns. The
outer, stack-like shape is made of plank and supports

THE BARN.

55

the girts, to which the covering is nailed. The other
work is made in the same way of planks of more or
less thicknesses, these bolted together to form power-
ful trusses at each bent.

In many barns now existing the stalls for the cattle
are allowed too little space, or more properly the stalls
cut into space that ought to be left behind the cattle
for a manure ditch and a raised walk. The
illustration shows how such a difficulty may
be remedied where existing, and how new
barns may economize space — a desirable fea-
ture. The cattles’ standing floor is
moved forward to the edge of the
feeding floor, with a solid partition
between. A part of this par-
tition is arranged, however, to open down on hinges
and be held by a chain, to form a crib for the cattle,
upright poles being arranged to hold the hay from slip-
ping down under their feet, but far enough apart to
allow the cattle to feed through them. All that is
required is that they may be able to get their noses
through, as the hay will keep constantly slipping toward
them as eaten. When the feed is eaten, and at night
in particular, this crib can be shut up out of the way,
making the stalls very warm indeed. For feeding grain,
ensilage or roots a feed box is provided that slips
through the partition in front of each animal, and is re-
moved when empty. A feed box should be provided
for each stall. The boxes can then be gathered, filled
and wheeled on a truck or barrow to the cribs.

Manure is worthy of good care. One of the best
cheap shelters is shown in the sketch. It is a lean-to

56

BIGGLE COW BOOK.

by the side of the barn built wide enough to back the
wagons into or drive through for loading when hauling
out manure. Or it may shelter carts
into which the stable clearing is done di-
rect, thus saving one handling. Outside
drop-boarding will be noticed. This is

in ten feet, sections, hinged at A , and is*^
to keep out cold from the barn at night §
and let in light by day as well as to ven--y
tilate the manure. A drain may run

w

A

J

from the stable into this manure storage room there
to be absorbed.

Here is a good plan for the floor of stall. The

dotted portion represents the ce-

ment, while the rest is of wood.
It will be seen that the fore feet of

the cattle stand upon plank, laid cross-wise to keep
the cattle from slipping when reaching for their fodder.
An unbroken surface of cement extends from this back
over the platform, down about the inside of the manure
gutter and up to the floor of the walk. This projects
over the cement to protect the edge of the latter.

In constructing the manure gutter it should be
placed nearer the feed-box or trough at one end of the
row of stalls than the other, to accommodate cows of
different lengths, and the stalls will vary in width from
four and one-half to five and one-half feet.

A cement floor for the cow stable is durable, easily
cleaned and cheapest eventually. How to lay it is no
secret, but many go wrong, lacking the knowledge.
First buy the best cement — Portland, although it costs
most, goes three times as far as the same money in

THE BARN.

57

cheap cement. To one barrel of Portland use eight
barrels of gravel or sand and broken stone, measuring
and not guessing. Then mix thoroughly, three times,
before wetting. Pour on no water but sprinkle with a
watering-pot as the third mixing is being done. Only
moisten, don’t wet it. Have it just so it will retain its
shape when a little is pressed in the hand. Have the
foundation ready in advance. If you can get stone
stand it on edge six inches deep and pound it all hard.
Or use six inches of gravel tamped solid. Then set up
edge pieces to lay a strip three to four feet wide and
pour in the concrete four inches, two inches at a time,
tramping it solid each time. On top make a surface
of cement half inch thick ; cement one part, sand
(screened) two parts. Each layer must dry slowly.

One of the useful things on the stock farm is an
elevated walk from the barn floor out over the feed
yard. A row of racks is made beneath the walk. The
hay is easily carried a forkful at a time and dropped
into these racks, from which it is eaten by the cattle in
the sun at noonday.

COMFORTABLES.

Cows need much water, but not in the form of cold autumn
rains.

Do not turn cows out in a cold wind for exercise. The animal
heat is wasted.

No live stock more than cows better appreciate dry bedding.

A hole in the stable is a hole in the pocket.

Thirty-cent butter is too costly to use for filling the cracks in
the walls of the cow stable.

Gilt-edged butter cannot be made when the cows are kept in a
dark, foul smelling, poorly ventilated stable.

While we must wake up and get the out-door idea out of our
head, we ought not keep the cows too closely confined or too warm.
A happy medium in this matter is required.

A GOOD HALF OF THE HERD.

Chapter XI.

STABLE REQUISITES.

To save steps is to save men and wages. — Tim.

The ideal stall has a floor level, or nearly level.
The cow may be fastened with a chain or with the New-
ton tie. I do not like stanchions. It is desirable to have
but little forward and backward freedom of motion
lest the droppings foul the cow’s hinder parts, includ-
ing the udder, when she lies down.

A useful device for adding to the comfort of the
cow and the cleanliness of her products is the curry
comb. Do not forget it, please. If there is. horse food
in a curry comb there is also cow food. A clean skin
and brisk circulation of blood is quite as essential in
the milker as in the trotter.

Drinking troughs or tanks in front of every stall,
or every other stall, are to be recommended. They
pay.

A trough or tub of water standing all day under
the rays of the summer sun, becomes very unpalatable
for cattle. An automatic arrangement for keeping
water cool is shown in the cut. A loose cover is sus-
pended over the trough by ropes. Cattle
and horses will quickly learn to press this
aside and drink, when the cover will come
back over the water again. Make the
cover light and support it evenly as shown.

The cattle should not be allowed to drink ice cold

6o

BIGGLE COW BOOK.

water. A trough may be hung on a pivot, just above

Where ground feed is given to stock much labor
and time are wasted unless it is all prepared at once and
all fed out of the same receptacle. A handy barrow
for this purpose is shown herewith. It is
-^§) water-tight so that all the feed can be mixed
in it, wheeled along in front of the stock and each one
given its ration.

A good milking stool has a seat and a
table for the pail to rest on. It is eighteen
inches long, ten inches wide and thirteen
inches in height, as shown here.

One of the requisites aside from clean udders and
cleanly milkers is a good milk strainer.

There is need for some kind of a power and some
kind of a cutter or shredder on every dairy farm.
There is less waste of coarse stuff when cut than when
uncut. It can be flavored with meal, and the cows
will consume a great deal more of it when thus pre-
pared. Besides, the ration can be better controlled,
better weighed, and better balanced where the cutter
is used. A mixing trough, where cut hay and fodder
can be mixed with meal and moisture, has a place in
all large cow stables.

A feeding stand for calves is handy for the pen or
field, or any place where it is desired to feed grain to
, them. The stand is fourteen inches

^ high made of inch pine, with a cross-
piece of hard wood and legs of the same inserted in

STABLE REQUISITES.

6 1

them through auger holes. It should be a foot wide,
with the sides three inches high. Animals can eat
from both sides and nothing is wasted.

Of the miscellaneous stable tools I need say little,
except to urge that each shall have a place and be kept
there. A wooden broom back of the cow stalls is a
good adjunct of the dung fork, and a common broom
in the entry and aisles should be used daily.

Here is a handy wheelbarrow
for the cow stables for moving bun-
dles of straw and corn fodder. The
construction of the front allows of
good sized loads not possible in a common wheelbarrow.

The dairyman should know the capacity of his
various measures, baskets and buckets in pounds, as
well as in volume, since food rations are necessarily
quoted in pounds. Milk pails can be made of a uni-
form weight; say two pounds exactly. It is then a
simple and easy matter to accurately weigh the pro-
duct of each cow as it is drawn, and at once record
the weight.

The thermometer is a necessary thing in a stable,
as without it there is danger of ill ventilation. The
habit of looking at the temperature of the stable is a
good one. Light and good ventilation are especially
necessary in winter.

A well-built dry goods box can
easily be made into a very convenient
feed chest by cutting it down in the
manner shown. Let the lid project a
little and cut out a place for the fingers in the front of
the box. If the box is long enough, a partition can

62

BIGGLE COW BOOK.

be put in the middle for two kinds of grain.

It is a great convenience to have platform scales
at the barn. Calves are to be weighed, rations made
up, and things bought and sold. It tends toward
accuracy.

It is important to save every pound of the urine.
A feasible plan is to place horse manure daily in the
gutter in rear of cows, and to sprinkle land plaster or
kainit on this, or have the urine run from the gutter to
a sunken hogshead; it should be saved by all means as
it is the key to successful farming.

A little medicine chest or closet is almost a neces-
sity, though its contents need not be very varied. It is
well to have Epsom salts and a few other simple things
within reach; also some bottles suitable for adminis-
tering doses when occasion arises. The best dairying
involves but little doctoring.

FIXINGS.

Make everything in the stable as plain and smooth as possible,
avoiding corners and protruding timbers.

Don’t try to economize overhead space — the more the room
the better the air.

Two or three milk-fed cats at the barn
are the best rat exterminators.

Keep things clean and bright.

Give personal attention to things.

A penny saved is a penny earned.

Cold draughts are the seeds of dis-
ease and loss.

A spring, or weight and pulley, on the cow stable door, is a
good investment, as it insures against accidentally leaving it open.

The manure gutter should be hard enough and smooth enough
to bear scrubbing with a splint broom. The feed trough should
be of a shape to make washing easy; preferably low, flat and
passing in front of all the cows. Walls and ceiling should be
whitewashed.

LIBRARY

UNIVERSITY Of ILLINOIS

URBANA

PLATE III.

AYRSHIRE COW.

Chapter XII.

THE GOOD MILKER.

Of all scrub stock the scrub viilker is the worst. — Dorothy Tucker.

It is an accomplishment to be a
rapid, thorough milker. It comes
from early training, long practice and
close intimacy with cows. Not only
is precious time saved by a quick
performance of the operation, but the cow’s full capa-
city of production is encouraged. The precious liquid
is drawn to the last drop, and the last drop is the
richest of all.

The knack of milking is hard to describe; it comes
by practice. The full teat is compressed by the hand
in such a manner that the flow is downward, not back
into the udder. A good milker will cause a perfect
white shower to descend to the pail. In five minutes the
udder is empty and the pail filled with froth-covered
milk.

Good milking involves absolute cleanliness ; a
great many rapid milkers are unclean in their practices.

It is no uncommon thing, for instance, to milk wet;
that is, the milker intentionally moistens his hands with
milk, and then proceeds to fill the pail.

The practice does not really make milking easier,
and it is too much like using the pail as a wash basin.
It is altogether inexcusable.

64

BIGGLE COW BOOK.

To grasp the teats of a cow just after she has arisen
from the bed in her stall, and to milk dry, is the other
extreme. Dust, dirt and manure particles tumble freely
into the pail.

The teats and udder should not be washed off, but
wiped off with a dry cloth before
milking. If water is used the
teats will likely crack. A rough,
loose cloth is best. Gunny-sack
.is splendid for this purpose.
Then milk with hands dry.

It is strictly true that many
a favorite. so-called good dairies send out

unclean milk; milk made unclean by the milkers. It
is not only unclean, but is seeded with bacteria, which
are the germs of decomposition.

I fear that a great many good milkers are guilty of
carelessness. The proof is in the bottom of the milk-
man’s serving can and in the bowl of the separator.
The consumer too often finds black specks and worse
in the bottom of the pitcher.

The good milker does not allow the full pail to
remain in the stable, but carries it at once into another
and cleaner atmosphere. He is not content with a
tg- coarse wire strainer, but uses a double thick-
ness of good cheese cloth, which catches all the
y j 1 hairs and dust particles and other impurities
V | which reach the pail under even the most

I careful management.

The newly drawn milk is at once

OLD WAY. J

cooled to say 50° F., either by placing the can in ice
water and stirring with a paddle or by means of a

THE GOOD MILKER.

65

cooler. This favors the escape of the so-called
“steam,” and also of the “cow odor,” and the milk
is then ready for the delivery cans or bottles.

The cooling of the milk should be done only
in a pure atmosphere ; not in the stable nor in a room
opening into the stable.

There are various milk coolers on the market, and
the choice of one should involve two
considerations : efficiency and ease of
cleaning after use. The method of run-
ning the milk over cold plates is pref-
erable to that of running it through
pipes, as the former device is more cer-
tain to be clean and free from taint.

The speedy removal of the animal
heat from cows milk is perhaps the new way.
most important requisite for good keeping quality.

It is bad policy to milk a cow while she is eating.
After a while she will not be disposed to stand to be
milked unless she has something to eat.

A great many kicking cows might be cured and
more prevented, by simply trimming the finger nails
often enough to keep them from cutting the teats.

Be quiet while milking. Pet the cows. Talk
when you get through. They will soon learn to
expect a caress and it pays.

The udder must be emptied to the last drop, and if
this is not done every time the supply will fall short
every time — that is, nature, finding that more milk has
been produced than is required, will abstain from pro-
ducing so much milk, and devote the food to the
production of fat or of muscle.

66

BIGGLE COW BOOK.

The tidy milker should wear an apron like this.
It can be made from a salt bag washed out
and hemmed. It should have strong cords
attached to it to tie around the body, and
should be cut open in front for a little dis-
tance from the bottom to make it easier to hold the
milk pail.

There are two things gained by warming the milk
pail in winter ; first, the milk froths and foams and
does not splatter and splash all over the person milk-
ing, and second, the milk that is milked into a cold
pail will not show the cream as thick or rich as when
warm and foamy, and further, the quart or two of hot
water carried to the barn to keep the pail warm can be
put into a pail of water given the cow to drink, which
is good for her.

A simple device, easily applied, to keep a cow
from switching her tail, is a heavy rope or light trace
chain, made in a loop, to throw over the rump. This
will prevent a good deal of switching by both man and
beast.

CO BOSS!

When you are angry don’t kick the cow. Kick the milking
stool till you break yourself of the kicking habit.

The milking stool is not a good hammer.

To be overharsh with a cow is like wasting a quart of milk.

Cows that leak their milk should be milked three times a day.

There is no self-milking device which is a success.

A slow milker will dry up a cow.

Some cows are born kickers, some become kickers, and many
more have kicking abused into them.

Don’t cool off the stables before milking. It makes the cows,
hold up their milk, and frequently they become fretful and kick.

Chapter XIII.

MILK AND CREAM.

Cream Colostrum

Milk is not a miraculous dispensation . — John Tucker.

In ioo pounds of good milk there
are about 87 pounds of water, 4 pounds
tof fat, 5 pounds of milk sugar, 3.3
pounds of casein and albumen, and .7 pound of mineral
matter or salt, the latter consisting mainly of phosphates
and chlorides. The proportions vary. The total solids
(everything except the water) may be as high as 18 per
cent, or as low as 10 per cent. The fat varies from
2 per cent, to 7 per cent. ,
with 4 per cent, as an aver- *
age. The cheese maker
can get along with 3 perms' J
cent., but prefers 3.5 perT££°$
cent.

Milk laws in certain fat globules.

states and cities demand not less than 3 to 3.5 per cent,
of fat and 9 to 9.5 per cent, of solids not fat. This
means total solids of 12 or 13 per cent.

It is a great mistake to regard fat as the only valu-
able part of milk, though fat is a good index, because
the more fat the larger the percentage of total solids.

A quart of milk weighs about 2.15 pounds, and a
quart of cream about 2.10 pounds.

I am sorry to introduce so many figures and per-
centages, for they are not pleasant reading, but there

68

BIGGLE COW BOOK.

is no help for it. The profits of dairying depend on
details, and the details are legion.

The amount of fat in the milk of the same cow va-
ries from time to time, from causes not always fully
understood. The percentage differs greatly when some
breeds are compared with others. The fat globules are
actually larger in some breeds than others. Hence the
cream rises more quickly and completely with the so-
called butter cows.

Many dairymen who retail their milk to private con-
sumers find it advantageous to have both large milkers
and rich milkers in the herd, in order to get quantity,
quality and color.

There are certain changes in the milk natural to the
progress of the period of lactation. As the cow gets along
there is an increased percentage of total solids. There
is a greater viscosity or stickiness in the body (serum)
of the milk, and the cream rises more slowly.

Cream always rises most completely and most
promptly if set soon after coming from the cow.
Long journeys and continued agitation are hostile
to cream gathering.

Bad flavors in milk and cream are due to one
or more of several causes. They may arise from dirt,
from the volatile oils of improper foods, from hostile
bacteria, or from ill health of the cow.

The first and last causes are inexcusable and avoid-
able. The second cause (overfeeding of cabbage, tur-
nips, mangels, ensilage, garlic) is under control of the
dairyman, and may be remedied by a change of time
of feeding or reduction of amount of food.

The third cause (bacteria) is closely associated

MILK AND CREAM.

69

with the first. Hostile ferments caused by bacteria may
be the result of dirt entering the milk or may come from
storage in an unclean atmosphere.

It is the sugar in milk which undergoes the quickest
and greatest change when souring occurs. Sweet but-
ter, as everybody knows, may be churned from sour
cream. There is milk sugar in cream as well as in milk.

The subject of bacteria is an important one to the
dairyman. There are many ferments caused by bacteria
which are not yet fully understood, but enough is known
to emphasize the need of cleanliness in dairy work.
Some bacteria are distinctly favorable, just as others
are unfavorable to good results. The friendly bacteria
are now employed in our butter making in much the
same way that we employ yeast in our bread making.
Each starts a desired ferment.

The so-called preservatives of milk, widely adver-
tised, are better let alone. They are germicides or
antiseptics or bacteria killers. They contain salicyjic
acid, saltpetre, boric acid, borax or formaldehyde.
They are not direct poisons, but seem to have a
hurtful effect on the human system, often pro-
ducing diarrhoea. In one sense they are adulterants.

The United States Dispensatory says the use of
salicylic acid should be prohibited. Preservatives
are properly forbidden by law in some states and
cities. LAC_

TOMETER.

Milk is not commonly adulterated, except with
preservatives or with water.

If milk be properly aerated and cooled to 450 or 50°
when drawn there should be no trouble in keeping it
(at 50°) for 24 or 36 hours; but it should never be suf-

7o

BIGGLE COW BOOK.

fered to stand around in pitchers or open dishes in
warm places. Neither should it be placed in closets or
refrigerators with strong-flavored foods. It should be
kept in a separate ice box. Old tin vessels are likely
to impart a bad taste to milk. Wooden vessels are
unsuitable, as they cannot be cleaned properly. Bright
tin is good, while porcelain and glass are even better.

When it is necessary to keep milk a long time there
are several ways of doing it. Pasteurization is one
method ; or the process may be carried up to the point
of sterilization. Condensed milk is another form in
which long-keeping quality is secured. These are all
natural methods ; which cannot be said of the results
secured by preservatives.

Pasteurization is recommended for milk for babies,
or when cold storage is not feasible. The requisite
apparatus is simple, consisting essentially of a covered
boiler. Bottles of milk are placed in the
_|boiler (not on the bottom, but on sup-
vJy ports or a false bottom), with cold water
fif! around them to a height above the
height of the milk in the bottles. Stop-

PASTEURIZING ° , , 1

apparatus, pers of absorbent cotton are to be used;
but not ordinary corks, as they are not to be trusted
for cleanliness. The required temperature is 1570 to
160° F. The heat is to be maintained for half an hour,
when the bottles are to be cooled as quickly as possible
and kept in a cool place, and left closed until used.

Sterilized milk is made at a higher temperature;
almost or quite the boiling point. The albumen is
likely to coagulate and form a scum.

The words ‘ ‘ pasteurize ’ ’ and ‘ ‘ sterilize ’ ’ are not

MILK AND CREAM.

71

yet used in a strictly accurate sense. In popular lan-
guage any method of destroying bacteria by a high
temperature is “sterilizing,” whereas to produce actual
and complete sterilization necessitates the repeated
heating of the milk to the boiling point for three succes-
sive days. This is to kill not only the bacteria, but the
spores of the bacteria ; the latter not being destroyed
by a single boiling. Sterilization can be accomplished
in a shorter time by heating to 248°, but this is possible
only under pressure, as water boils at 2120. Pasteuri-
zation is usually sufficient, so far as health is concerned,
if the milk is to be used soon. In both processes the
sealing and quick cooling are essential parts of the
operation.

There is no known simple test to determine the
presence of disease germs in milk, and hence the ne-
cessity for the processes just described.

Condensed milk is made by sterilizing ordinary
milk under pressure and evaporating say one-half its
water, when it is put in tin or glass and hermetically
sealed. It will thus keep indefinitely. There are two
processes, one involving the addition of common sugar
and one without sugar. The manufacture of condensed
milk is becoming an American industry. It has long
been carried on in Switzerland.

Milk when about to sour will coagulate when
boiled. Farrington, of Wisconsin, has devised an alka-
line tablet for determining the amount of acid, without
boiling. The tablet solution with fresh milk produces
a pink color. With milk about to sour this pink color
is but faintly shown or is absent. This inexpensive test
is suited to household use.

72

BIGGLE COW BOOK.

Ropy milk is probably the result of the presence of
hostile bacteria, presumably in the pasture. It is ex-
tremely annoying to dairymen. A change of pasture
is the only remedy that I can recommend with
confidence.

DRIPPINGS.

Freshness in milk is as much a matter ot care as a matter of
hours.

Freshly drawn milk is sterile. The dairyman decides what
species of bacteria shall enter it.

Cool the milk quickly. It is the secret of good keeping qualities.

The cream from some cows is so slow in rising that it does not
rise until after skimming and not then.

Night’s milk is richer than morning’s.

It is said that milk does not quench thirst like water. It is
more victuals than drink.

Cream is 15 per cent, lighter than the milk. This is why it
rises to the surface.

Condensed milk, in proportion to uncondensed, is one to four.
The water is driven out and the solids retained. By adding water
it is milk again, though not exactly as it comes from the cow.

Boiling milk makes it more easily digested. It will also kill
the germs which may cause purging.

Leaving the milk in the stable till it gets
less cream.

The milk of cows in calf will get thick
sooner if fed all dry and heating foods.

I do not know anything which will take
garlic out of milk better than pigs in the
pasture.

Who hath woe? Who hath redness of
eyes? Verily, it is she that crieth over spilt
milk. — Source unknown.

(LIBRARY

UNIVERSITY Of ILLINOIS

URfiANA

Chapter XIV.

BUTTER.

Not merely gilt-edge , but solid gold all through; the only
genuine gold bricks in the world. — Tim.

Cream is an article which varies con-
siderably in its composition. Snyder’s
“Chemistry of Dairying’’ quotes the follow-
ing average analysis of twenty-five samples:

k Per cent.

Water 66.41

Fat 25.72

Casein and albumen 3.70

Milk sugar 3.54

Ash 63

It will be seen that the total solids
amount to 33.59 per cent.; that is,
cream is about two-thirds water and
one-third solids. According to Snyder the fat in cream
varies all the way from 10 to 60 per cent., with an
average of 20 or 25 per cent.

The total solids of milk, it will be
remembered, amount to about 12 or 13
per cent. Cream has the same ingredients
as milk, but in different proportions; that
is, none of the milk ingredients are
wholly absent from cream.

Butter is usually regarded as consist- •
ing of fat and fat only, but the chemist churning when

a A * *4- 11 4-U -it t • HARRIET WAS

finds in it all the milk and cream ingre-

dients, possibly excepting albumen.

A GIRL.

The following

74

BIGGLE COW BOOK.

figures represent the average of twenty analyses of
butter made by the Minnesota Experiment Station:

Per cent.

Water 12.00

Fat 85.00

Ash and salt 2.25

Casein and milk sugar 75

Butter should not contain less than 83 per cent, of
fat, though the amount varies; nor more than 15 per
cent, of water.

An examination of the analysis of butter will show
at a glance why it is customary to add, say, one-sixth
of the known weight of butter fat in a given quantity
of milk in estimating in advance the product of butter.

One-sixth is 16.6 per cent. To allow for inevitable
losses it is considered safer in making estimates of
butter to add only 15 per cent, of the actual weight of
fat in the milk.

The main object in cream gathering is the manu-
facture of butter, although large quanti-
ties of cream are now sold for domestic
use. The ice cream makers also use
considerable amounts. When a good
cream trade can be secured, the best
cash results are to be had in that way, as cream is more
of an article of luxury than butter.

There are two systems of cream gathering prac-
tised in America, one depending on gravity and the
other on centrifugal force.

The gravity plan offers a choice between shallow
and deep setting. In shallow setting use is made of
tin pans or glazed earthen crocks. The depth of milk
is two to six inches. A great surface is exposed to the

BUTTER.

75

air, and there is constant danger of contamination from
dust particles. This plan is often practised in private
families, the milk being set in closets, pantry shelves,
cellars or spring houses. It usually sours quickly.
The plan is not the best, though good products are
obtainable under strict cleanliness.

The deep-setting method, which is next in effi-
ciency to the separator, makes use of round cans made
of heavy tin, about 8 inches in diameter and 18 to 26
inches in depth. These cans set in ice water produce
very satisfactory results in from 12 to 24 hours. The
cream may be removed from the surface,
or the skimmilk may be drawn off from
beneath by a small spigot at the bottom of
the can. The loss of fat may be reduced
by the deep setting system (according to^

Plumb) to .17 of one per cent., as against T

. - - r CREAM SET-

a loss 01 .34 01 one per cent, in surface ting can.
skimming. Cheap tin vessels should never be used,
as the milk and cream are tainted as soon as the tin
has worn off the iron.

In 100 pounds of 4 per cent, milk the lost fat in
shallow setting would amount to .34 of a pound, or 8l/2
per cent, of the total fat, while the lost fat in deep set-
ting would amount to only. 17 of a pound, or 4X percent,
of the total fat. The deep system is therefore better.

Deep setting in spring water is
ifljl good, but a cabinet creamer is better,
Q^|ginOn account of the use of ice. These
| devices are, however, being largely
Jjreplaced by mechanical separators.
cabinet creamer. “Sweet cream butter” is not in

76

BIGGLE COW BOOK.

general demand in America. It has been put upon
the market from time to time, and is now manufactured
in certain localities, but is usually bought only for
special purposes. The sweet product made by the
Swedish butter extractor, in 1889 and later, found but
few patrons, and the extractor itself appears to have
practically disappeared from the American market. As
reported upon by the Delaware station it obtained only
84.60 pounds of butter out of a possible 100, as against
93.94 pounds obtained by a cream separator and churn.

Sour cream butter is in general favor in the United
States. The sourness is caused by lactic acid, and the
lactic acid is caused by or accompanied by well-known
bacteria of several species.

Cream, whether obtained by gravity or by sepa-
rator, must be “ripened” in order to secure the desired
butter flavor. Long experience and best methods have
established a standard of excellence in butter; and the
butter maker must needs cater to this popular taste.

I' Among recent important discoveries in the
science of dairying is the fact that the ferments
of milk and cream are under human control; that
bacteria cultures may be prepared on a commer-
J cial scale for use in butter making just as yeast is
T used in bread making; and that these ferment
1 ; 1 starters tend to make an exact science of what
! formerly was guesswork.

U The widely-advertised bacteria cultures for
producing a certain much-desired butter flavor are
V nothing more nor less than preparations which
start the ferments which come naturally in
eter. all good dairies under most favorable circum-

BUTTER.

77

stances. Butter made under the best conditions of
breed, feed, care and treatment, without artificial aid,
is the pattern which the bacteria culturist successfully
imitates. The cultures merely start the souring in the
right direction.

The process of ripening cream is hastened by
stirring and aerating. The time required is about
twenty-four hours. No new or sweet cream should
be added at churning time, or within twelve hours
previously, as it will be mostly lost; or else the ripened
cream will be overchurned.

The temperature for churning sour cream, well
ripened, should be about 6o° F. in summer and 65° F.
in winter. For churning sweet cream the proper
temperature is 50° to 55 °.

A small amount of butter color is allowable, with-
out conflicting with the food laws against
adulteration. Annatto (Bixa orellana) orJ^l
some other vegetable preparation should be^
used, but not aniline dye. The use of carrots!
in the cow manger is to be recommended.

Churning should be a quick, cleanly ioned churn.
operation. The washing and working involve details
of individual choice and experience. Salting is a
matter of market. Three-quarters of an ounce of
salt to the pound is a good average quantity. The
salt should not show a tendency to absorb water or
to become hard and lumpy. There are better brands
on the market.

Printing and packing demand precision of method.
It always pays to make a neat print for the
-•retail market, and to put the lump in fresh

78

HIGGLE COW BOOK.

butter paper. A nickel’s worth of care will add a
dime to the market value.

White oak vessels (tubs, kegs, firkins) are suitable
for butter-packing purposes. They must be perfectly
clean, and should be soaked in brine before

lllj/being used. The butter is packed in a two-inch

layer; then sprinkled with salt; then a two-inch
layer of butter, etc. The top is covered with a white
muslin cloth.

Pasteurized butter is butter made from pasteurized
cream. It is deemed unwise to expect success with any
special bacteria as a starter without first using heat to
destroy the ferments already present in the cream,
which may be of an undesirable kind.

In closing I will briefly summarize the whole pro-
cess of butter making for the benefit of the novice.

First, put clean, sweet cream into a jar or can in a
cool, well-ventilated place, where there are no suspi-
cious odors. Bad odors will make bad butter. Stir the
cream gently at least twice a day. The cellar or milk
room temperature should be from 550 to 65°. At this
temperature the cream will sour or ripen inside of forty-
eight hours with a characteristic fragrance which cannot
be mistaken when once learned. No fresh cream should
be added to the jar within twelve hours of churning, as
it will not ripen and will be mostly lost. Sweet cream
can be churned, but its churning time and temperature
are different from sour cream. Churning should be
done frequently for best results — twice a week at least.

On churning days scald the churn and then rinse it
with cold water. Use a dairy thermometer in the cream,
and make the temperature 65° in winter or 6o° in sum-

BUTTER.

79

mer. Add a little butter color, if desired, as per direc-
tions on the bottle. Churn steadily — neither fast nor
slow. The butter will come, under ordinary circum-
stances, in half an hour.

Churn slowly at the last until the butter becomes
granulated the size of kernels of wheat. Draw the but-
termilk and wash in two waters; cold, clear water. Salt
in the churn and mix the salt in well. After salting let
it stand fifteen minutes for the salt to dissolve. Then
work in the churn, either by churning or with paddles,
until it becomes one mass. Then it is ready to ball or
put into tub or box.

Never employ a man in the dairy who uses tobacco.
The fumes of tobacco smoke are exceedingly penetrat-
ing and lasting, and will surely affect the butter.

No butter, however well made, will retain all its
flavor and aroma more than ten days or two weeks.

Working butter too much, or when too cold,
breaks the grain and gives it a salvy^
appearance that lessens its market^
value. Such butter soon loses flavor
and becomes rancid.

‘ ‘ If you want your butter both nice and sweet
Don’t turn with nervous jerking,

But ply the dasher slowly, and then
You’ll hardly know that you’re working ;

And when the butter has come, you’ll say
‘Yes, surely, this is the better way — ’

Churn Slowly.”

A damp or hot place will not do to store butter.
The store-room must be dry, sweet and cool. Cover
with damp salt and a cloth.

BUTTER WORKER.

8o

BIGGLE COW BOOK.

GRANULES.

Cheap parchment paper sometimes moulds and causes mouldy
butter.

We should be sending more butter abroad.

It is better to keep ten 300-pound cows than twenty 150-pound
cows. Six times the profit in the former.

Butter making is an art suited to women.

Bad butter is oleo’s best friend.

It costs as much to make butter that will sell for soap grease,
as a first-class article that will sell at a fancy price.

Conceit will not make good butter.

Butter loses by storage.

Don’t hurry the cows to or from the pasture. If you do you
will have to hurry the butter to market or lose your trade.

Better churn twice than mix cream in different stages of
ripening.

Look forward to a winter dairy.

There is a big difference between the cash and trading out the
butter.

The average farm-house cellar is an unnatural butter kingdom.

A good butter maker is a sun worshipper and a hot water crank .

tmRARY

MWEBSI7, Of JtLIlvois
URBANa

PLATE V.

Chapter XV.

IMITATIONS.

There is fraud somewhere when an article must be misnamed
in order to sell it. — John Tucker.

The adulteration of foods is widely practised, and
dairy products form no exception to the general rule.
Fortunately the law is taking note of such frauds, and
food commissioners are at work to protect the public
against deception.

Bogus butter is mainly of two kinds, known re-
spectively as oleomargarine and butterine.

These products are made of beef fat, and are in
one sense by-products of beef slaughtering operations
in the great cities. Fats of various grades of cleanness
and uncleanness are put through filter presses, and the
fats thus graded. The harder fats are used for the
manufacture of soap and candles.

The softer fats are put into churns with sweet milk,
and then churned, colored, salted, and packed to re-
semble butter in both taste and appearance. The pro-
ducts are sold as oleomargarine and butterine.

There is a slight difference between the melting
points of these two articles. Butterine is sold in the
northern markets, frequently in illegal competition
with genuine butter. Oleomargarine is sent South
and is also largely exported.

Cheese is adulterated by a substitution of lard and
cottolene oil for the real butter fat of milk, the milk

82

BIGGLE COW BOOK.

having been previously robbed of its butter fat. Such
cheeses are said to be tilled. In some places the law
provides that cheese shall contain at least three per
cent, of butter fat.

Butyrin to the extent of about seven per cent, is
present in genuine butter and nearly absent in the imi-
tations of butter. The law is fully justified in demand-
ing that all food products shall be sold strictly true to
their own names and not disguised so as to imitate
higher-priced products. Fraud is fraud, and should
be so regarded.

The so-called butter increasers occasionally offered
for sale, claiming to double the butter product of a
given amount of cream, contain acetic acid (or some
other acid) which curdles the casein and causes it to
mix with the butter fat. The product is neither butter
nor cheese, but a mixture. There is an increase in the
weight of butter, but the process is not honest. Be-
ware of any butter increasers except good cow food.

JABS.

We must make a fight for the butter market of Europe; the
butter market, not the oleo.

Use your state experiment station. Ask questions.

Take no stock in new-fashioned dairy foods until the experi-
ment stations pronounce them worth the money.

Honest feeds must be bought at honest prices ; raise things on
the farm and buy only for balancing.

The fraudulent butter maker cannot hurt a dairyman who
personally conducts his goods to retail buyers.

Chapter XVI.

CHEESE.

Cheese is the most convenient permanent form in which milk
can be preserved for consumption. — Henry Stewart.

Cheese is milk minus the whey,
plus the curing. An ingredient of
the milk has been dropped and cer-
tain chemical and mechanical changes effected.

New milk contains some free soda, and is slightly
alkaline. When it becomes acid by fermentation, or
when an acid is added, the casein and most of the
solids are coagulated. They no longer remain in real
or apparent solution, but separate from the whey.

Rennet is the agent commercially employed to
produce quick coagulation. The result is called curd
or curds.

Various acids have been used for forming curd — •
acetic, hydrochloric, lactic, etc. The acid reaction of
rennet is, however, the most satisfactory of all.

Rennet is a name applied with propriety not only
to the mucous membrane of the fourth stomach of a
young calf but to the liquid infusion made from this
membrane. Rennet occurs in the same way in other
young ruminating animals, but the commercial supply
comes from calves which have never been fed anything
except milk.

The stomach is salted inside and out, dried in a
warm place, and kept until needed; or it may be kept
packed in salt or in brine.

84

BIGGLE COW BOOK.

To prepare an infusion the stomach, or a portion
of it, is steeped in warm water or whey, and bottled.

To have good rennet, of known strength, is of
prime importance in cheese making.

The working and manipulation of the curd de-
mands experience. Flavor is determined largely at
this stage of the process. Some cheese makers em-
ploy spices and aromatic herbs and even liquors, in the
production of certain brands of cheese.

An accurate thermometer should be employed in
cheese-making operations. Though there are many
ways of making good cheese, each way demands accu-
racy of detail.

Cheese is made of whole milk, of whole milk with
cream added, of partly skimmed milk, of skimmed
milk, of cream ; and even buttermilk is employed in
making some so-called cheeses.

Filled cheese, sometimes called oleo cheese or lard
cheese, is made by combining oleo oil with skimmed
milk.

Full cream cheese, honestly made, is of course the
best; though some of the fancy cheeses, made with
special care, command higher prices.

Skill in manipulating the curd in its early stages
must be supplemented by equal skill in the curing of
the cheese. The ripening process is of great im-
portance.

The factory process of cheese making in America
may be briefly outlined as follows: The milk is received
twice a day. The evening milk is kept over night at
6o°, and then thoroughly mixed with morning’s milk
and heated to 8o°. Rennet is added in sufficient quan-

CHEESE.

85

tity to bring the curd in an hour. When the curd has
become sufficiently solid to split before the finger it is
cut with implements called curd knives into small cubes.
The vat is then heated gradually to 950 or 96°, and the
heat is maintained for an hour or more. Difference in
time makes a difference in the ultimate hardness or
firmness of the cheese.

At the conclusion of the heating or cooking the
curd is well-stirred, to facilitate the separation of the
whey. After a slight acidity has developed the whey
is drawn off, and the curd allowed to cool.

It is next torn to fragments, and when suffic-
iently firm is ground into small pieces and salted
at the rate of two pounds per 100 of curd or 1000
pounds of milk used. The curd is then ready for
pressing and curing.

The curing-room, a necessary feature of a cheese-
making establishment, is an apartment provided with
capacious shelving. The temperature and moisture
should be uniform and the ventilation good. The
cheeses, properly bandaged, require frequent turning
and considerable time for their proper ripening. The
American standard cheese weighs sixty pounds.

For producing small cheeses at home, away from
a factory, make curd by the use of rennet, as already
described. A new wash-tub or other large receptacle
may be employed as a vat. A cheese hoop may be
made from a cheese-box from the grocery store. A
head or follower can be sawed out to fit the hoop, and
a lever press made with a flat fence-rail. Or a number
of small moulds can be made of tin fruit cans, with
tops and bottoms unsoldered.

86

BIGGLE COW BOOK.

Mix well-stirred night’s milk with morning’s milk,
as already described, and heat to 88°. Use a teaspoon-
ful of coloring to 150 pounds of milk, and enough
rennet to curdle in fifteen minutes.

After cutting the curd raise to a temperature of
1020. This can be done by dipping off the whey, heat-
ing it, and returning it to the curd, all the while stirring
gently.

When the curd particles seem elastic, and fall apart
when gently pressed with the hand, the whey may be
removed, except enough to cover the curd.

The curd is placed in the moulds, and light pressure
applied. In half an hour the cheeses should be ready
for bandaging with muslin — a strip around the circum-
ference and a piece for top and another for bottom.
The cloths should be dipped into hot water (120°)
before application.

The cheeses thus wrapped, and further protected
by pieces of muslin, are returned to the moulds, tops
downward, and gradually subjected to heavy pressure,
which should continue for a day.

To ripen the cheeses they should be kept in an
airy cellar, and turned daily for five or six days, each
time rubbing them with salt. The temperature of the
cellar should be 65° to 70°. After the salting has
ceased the cheeses should be turned and rubbed
with the hand daily, and then two or three times
a week. In two or three weeks they will be ready
for use. If they become mouldy they should be
washed in strong brine.

Stilton Cheese. The most famous of the double
cream cheeses, the Stilton, is produced almost exclu-

CHEESE.

87

sively in Leicestershire, England, where the milk from
cows grazing on sweet, rich pasture without artificial
food is considered best. It is made from the morning’s
milk to which cream from the previous night’s mess
has been added in the proportion of one part cream to
ten or twelve of milk. The curd is shaped in the
hoop without pressure. To develop the blue mold
that is an essential feature of this brand the curing is
done in a warm room and sometimes bits of old cheese
are put in the new.

Pot Cheese. For the most delicious pot cheese
the following recipe from a successful New York maker
can be depended upon: To ten quarts of buttermilk
add three quarts of skimmilk. Heat it slowly, and
when the curd has risen dip it off carefully and put it
in a thin cloth to drain. Add butter to suit the degree
of richness required, and salt to the taste, mixing all
thoroughly.

Edam. This cheese gets its name from a town in
Holland. It is the nearly globular, reddish-colored
cheese now widely sold in all leading American grocery
stores.

Sage. Sage cheese may be made in a small dairy.
This is one of the so-called green cheeses. Green
sage, parsley and marigold leaves are used in the pro-
cess of manufacture.

Neufchatel. An American brand of this French
cheese is to be had in our large cities. The cheese is
a pasty substance, to be spread on bread after the
fashion of butter.

Brie. ThE is a French cheese which is now made
in America. It is of a soft, almost creamy, consistency.

88

BIGGLE COW BOOK.

Roquefort. This is another cheese depending
for its flavor largely upon fungous growths.

Cheddar. English Cheddar is regarded as the
best plain cheese in the world, and American Cheddar
is quite similar to it. The whole milk is warmed to
8o°, and the curd broken into fine pieces. Curd and
whey are brought to ioo°, and the whey drawn off
when a certain degree of acidity has been reached. It
is salted at the rate of two pounds to ioo pounds of curd.

Pineapple. This is one of the small, high-priced
cheeses in favor in America. It pays to make such
goods.

SKIPPERS.

In round figures it requires ten pounds of milk to make a
pound of cheese and twenty pounds of milk to make a pound ot
butter.

Cow’s milk is not fit for cheese until the calf is a week old.

Can you not invent a nice little cheese for a nice little retail
trade of your own?

It is cheese, not butter, that carries fertility from the farm;
$12.30 to the ton of whole-milk cheese.

A ton of skimmilk cheese is credited with fertilizing value to
the amount of $23.55.

A slow coming and curing cheese is best.

Cured whole-milk cheese contains about one-third fat and a
little less than one-third casein and albumen and one-third water.

Every shade of cowy or animal odor and taint can be elimi-
nated from cheese by airing the warm curd, provided sweet rennet
is used and the curd is gotten out of the whey and the airing is
done before acidity sets in.

The digestibility of cheese depends mainly on the presence of
the phosphates of lime, iron, soda and magnesia. These are dis-
solved by acid and washed out in the whey. By drawing off the
whey when sweet, or just on the verge of acidity, they are nearly
all retained and the cheese is digestible.

t!r?p«pY

UNIVEHSHV OF ILLINOIS

URBANA

Chapter XVII.

BEEF.

Some folks want a steer and a cow all in one animal — beef and
butter. It is a partnership which does not work well. — J ohn T ucker .

The commercial profits of beef production depend
largely on location and conditions. Beefing in a
dairying district does not pay, nor
does dairying in a beef district.
Close to the large eastern cities the
dairy cow is at her best, and feed-
ing steers is at a discount. In the
West, where not adjacent to good
local dairying markets, the fattening of steers for ship-
ment is a profitable industry.

There are also intermediate districts where milk
and beef are both in demand, and where heavy cows
are able to supply both.

Even in the East some dairymen make a habit of
buying large-framed cows when fresh, feeding them
heavily, milking them as long as profitable, and then
selling them to the butcher, replacing them with other
animals with calves by their sides. To supply this de-
mand is the business of some drovers,
who buy the fresh cows in districts
remote from the large cities and ship
them in carload lots and sell them at ,
public auction.

The heavy breeds of cattle are adapted to the
needs of the cheese maker rather than the butter maker.

9o

BIGGLE COW BOOK.

The smaller breeds are not in high favor with the
butchers, who complain that the meat is yellow and
less salable than where the fat is white in color. Fancy
and prejudice go a long way, even in beefsteaks. It
is therefore better, in buying cows to fatten, to select
those of square build, rather than small, triangle-shaped
animals. The butcher always looks at the hip bones
and at the rump. The choice cuts and best prices per-
tain to that end of the animal.

The business of beef production involves a care-
ful study of economic principles. Carefully conducted
experiments show that steers like cows must be fed on
a well balanced ration; that such a ration produces
more gain and more profit than a poorly balanced
ration; that such beef actually has a higher market
value per pound than the beef from animals fed on a
poorly constructed ration; and that the ordinary corn
and cob meal used by farmers is unprofitable, when
used alone, as it requires the addition of some highly
nitrogenous food like wheat bran or cottonseed meal
to make it fully advantageous.

Sometimes it is feasible, even in the East, to buy
steers in the autumn for winter feeding
on terms that admit of financial profit.
Whenever this plan will fully pay the
cash outlay, and leave a big manure
pile as clear profit, it is to be com-
mended. The manure of a steer well
fed for six months should be worth from $10 to $15.

In raising calves for steers the early feeding should
be right. Castration should occur at the age of six
months, and the animal should be fit for the butcher

BEEF.

91

when two years old. It is believed that profits
lie mainly in early maturity wherever high feeding is
practised.

In making a fattening or beef-producing ration for
a dairy cow we have no better ingredient than corn
meal. It is practically the same with the steer. In all
cases the ration must be balanced, or the excess of
corn meal will simply go to the dung heap.

Here are two suggested rations for steers weigh-
ing 1000 pounds, the ration in each case to cover a
whole day:

10 lbs. shelled corn.

5 lbs. wheat bran.

4 lbs. linseed meal (new process).

10 lbs. corn fodder (dry).

3 lbs. wheat straw.

40 lbs. corn ensilage.

5 lbs» clover hay.

10 lbs. finely ground corn meal.

3 lbs. cottonseed meal.

The latter is, I think, distinctly better in calling
for finely ground corn meal instead of whole corn.
The cottonseed meal should be divided so as not to
all come in either of the three daily meals. It is a
highly concentrated food.

Corn silage is of great value in a ration for fat-
tening steers, but a ration of silage and corn meal alone
is not safe. A mixture of straw or chaff with the silage
and meal renders it safe — one pound of straw to every
three pounds of silage.

The daily gain in weight grows less as cattle grow
older. Steers matured and marketed at two years old
give thirty per cent, more profit than if kept till three.

92

BIGGLE COW BOOK.

A iooo-pound steer requires an average of eleven
pounds of feed to make one pound of gain.

A juicy, tender young beef should be one of the
good things a grazing farm produces for family use
every fall. November and December are good months
for slaughtering, as the meat can be kept fresh nearly
all winter.

Neighborhood beef clubs are in favor in some places.
These clubs are conducted on various plans. The

idea is co-operative, and
the details are arranged
to suit the members. A
score of families, more
or less, join together and
agree that a beef shall be
killed and divided every
week. This would mean
twenty pounds of fresh
meat to each family from
a beef dressing 400 pounds. Each member in turn
furnishes the animal. It is found best to have the
slaughtering always done in the same place.

GOOD ONES.

DRIED BEEF.

A cold animal may shiver off many pounds of flesh. Give the
fattening steer a teaspoonful of salt daily. Beef the rogue cows.

Veal the male calves or beef them. Don’t monkey them.

To grow animals, feed one thing ; to fatten them another.

Don’t get the steers to kicking. They can be coaxed better
than whipped out of it.

The most profit in the steer is in the first year’s growth. The
next year has less, and so on

Don’t try to make the corn in the steer’s belly take the place
of shelter.

Chapter XVIII.

BY-PRODUCTS.

“ Gather up the fragments that nothing be lost.)}

Milk, cream, butter and cheese are the main pro-
ducts of the dairy. The minor or by-products include
skimmilk, cottage cheese or smearcase, whey and
buttermilk. Calves are in one sense a by-product, but
need no mention in this chapter. Manure is a by-pro-
duct of great importance.

For purposes of comparison it is well to have the
(average) ingredients of milk and its by-products ar-
ranged compactly expressed in percentages, as follows :

Water.

Fat.

Casein and
Albumen
(Protein.)

Sugar.

Ash.

Whole Milk . .

87.50

3-50

3-25

5-oo

•75

Skimmilk . . .

90.25

.20

3.60

5-i5

.80

Buttermilk . . .

90.50

.20

3-30

5-30

.70

Whey . .

93.00

•35

.80

5.20

•65

[The percentage of fat varies greatly ; 3.50 percent, is too low
for butter profits.]

To emphasize the value of the by-products of milk
as fertilizers the following will be found useful :

Nitrogen.

Phosphoric

Acid.

Potash.

Whole Milk . .

•53

.19

.18

Skimmilk . . .

•56

.20

.19

Buttermilk . .

.48

•i7

.16

Whey

•15

.14

.18

This indicates that a ton of whole milk is worth as a

94

BIGGLE COW BOOK.

fertilizer about $2.04, a ton of skimmilk about $2.15, a
ton of buttermilk about $1 .84, and a ton of whey about 83
cents. When these farm products are sold they carry
away with them fertility to the amount stated. The
milk of a cow for a year (5000 pounds or 2^ tons)
would therefore carry away about $5.00 in the shape
of fertilizers. If the cow’s annual manure product is
worth $19.00 this $5.00 must be deducted, leaving a net
gain of only $14.00 for the manure.

These figures show the wisdom of feeding the by-
products of milk on the farm, unless they can be sold.
Of course where they can be well marketed it is good
business policy to do so, afterward investing part of
the proceeds in artificial manures.

I have been compelled to refer frequently to the
term balanced ration, and whole milk may be used as
an example. This article is an almost perfect food, es-
pecially adapted to the body-growth of young animals.

As milk is nearly all digestible the above analysis
may be used as it stands. The rule says : Multiply
the digestible fat by 2% and add to the digestible carbo-
hydrates. This gives the sum total of the non-nitrog-
enous elements, the fat being multiplied by 2^ on
account of its superior value as a heat producer. Then
divide by the digestible protein and the result will indi-
cate the nutritive ratio. That is, if the quotient be 4
the ratio is said to be as 1 to 4, as in the case of whole
milk. Hence we say that a ratio of 1 to 4 is the proper
one for young, growing animals.

It seems almost contradictory to say that, bulk for
bulk, skimmilk is richer than new milk in protein (casein
and albumen), but such is the case. Dairymen should

BY-PRODUCTS.

95

remember this in preparing the calf ration. It is not
because anything has been added, but because the
renewal of one element (the fat) increases the percent-
age (not the quantity) of the remaining elements.

Skimmilk is an excellent and nutritious food for
man or beast, but whether used in the kitchen or in the
dairy it should be supplemented by foods containing
sugars and starches (carbonaceous foods) for reasons
already explained. It is quite as important that
human rations should be as well-balanced as stock
rations.

The sale of skimmilk should be encouraged by
law, not discouraged. It is a wholesome food, and
a perfectly honest article when sold under its true
name.

As a food for calves, pigs or even cows it is excel-
lent. It may be fed sweet or sour ; preferably the
former. Milk soured in a proper, cleanly manner is
not unwholesome, but when permitted to sour in a
filthy barrel it is liable to produce bowel troubles in
young stock. Calves are sure to get the scours. Pigs
appear to have stomachs made of cast-iron, but it is
different with calves; and I am sure it would be profit-
able to practise cleanliness even with pigs.

Cottage cheese or smearcase is an article of general
home consumption and market sale in Pennsylvania
and other states. It is simply sour milk with the whey
drained off. The residue, which is mainly casein, is
in reality a cheese. It is salted and made into balls
for sale, or is sold by the dipperful. On the table it
is often prepared by adding cream, salt, pepper, etc.,
to increase its palatability. It is a cheap, wholesome.

96

BIGGLE COW BOOK

nutritious food, especially if eaten with fruit, either
raw or cooked.

Whey consists mostly of water and sugar, as shown
in the analysis. It is valuable for food, especially for
pigs. To balance up a ration including whey the use
of wheat bran would be advisable; not corn meal, as
the latter would be too much like adding carbohydrates
to carbohydrates.

Buttermilk is somewhat
like skimmilk in composi-
tion, as will be seen by the
analysis. It has some value
as a beverage, and is sold for
that purpose; but its usual
destination is the swill-tub.
It is a useful food for the
reasons that were mentioned in the case of skimmilk.
Corn meal should be used with it rather than bran, as
it is already rich in protein.

Now that the buffalo has become nearly extinct we
must look to cattle to supply us with carriage robes, and
they will do it. I am now the possessor of a splendid
robe made from a Galloway steer, and much prefer it to
my buffalo robe. It is not so heavy, it is more flexible,
and almost as warm. Preferably such robes are made
from hides taken from animals in cold climates, that
have wintered outdoors. Such robes can be bought
at a moderate price, or a farmer can send a hide to the
tanners and have it returned made into a robe.

It is estimated that the loss to butchers, farmers
and trappers in this country from wrong methods of
removing and curing hides exceeds one million dollars

BY-PRODUCTS.

97

annually. Figure i shows the right way of removing
beef and calf hides and shows the shape of the hides
when so removed. On the fore
leg the cut should be made down
to the armpit, then forward to the
point of brisket as shown by
dotted lines. On the hind leg
the knife should also follow the
dotted lines. Figure 2 shows
how not to do it and the result
of the wrong method. Never cut
across the throat. Always take out the horns and
tailbone and fill the cavity from which the bone is re-
moved with salt or alum water. To salt a sixty
pound hide requires a water-bucket of salt. Rub on
well and roll up. By keeping back of knife close to
hide and drawing firmly with the left, cutting or
scoring will be prevented.

Lastly I must say a word about
manure, a by-product of the dairy
of the greatest economic import-
ance ; a thing too often treated
carelessly, with consequent finan-
cial loss.

The manure from well-fed
cows is estimated to be worth
$ 2.00 per ton, and the yearly product, if it were
possible to save all, nearly ten tons, or a total of not
less than $19.00. Of all the foods given to the cow some
eighty per cent, (in fertility) goes to the dung pile.

The best known preservatives of manure in storage
are such things as gypsum, kainit, etc. They absorb

FIG. 2.

98

BIGGLE COW BOOK.

the ammonia that would otherwise be lost. A German
authority recommends for daily use the following per
88o-pounds weight of cow : Superphosphate, i pound,
2 ounces; gypsum, i pound, 12 ounces; kainit, 1 pound,
5 ounces. The European people take good care of
stable manure.

I wish to call attention to the statements of chem-
ists as to the relative value of solid and liquid cow
manure. Take the item of nitrogen, for instance,
which is by far the most expensive and valuable part
of natural and artificial manures. A ton of fresh cattle
excrement contains : Nitrogen, 5.8 pounds ; potash, 2
pounds; phosphoric acid, 3.4 pounds. A ton of urine
contains: Nitrogen, 1 1.6 pounds; potash, 9.8 pounds.
Computing nitrogen at 15 cents, potash at 5^ cents and
phosphoric acid at 8 cents per pound, the respective
values are $1.25 for the ton of excrement, and $2.28 for
the urine.

GALLOWAY BULL AND COW,

Chapter XIX.

WINTER.

December is as pleasant as May to the well-kept cow. — Tim.

Winter dairying is no more difficult
and is in many respects more satisfac-
tory than summer dairying. It costs no

more to feed the cows, and it is easier to properly care
for the milk. In winter the flies are absent, and the
ferments which make trouble are less active. It is less
of a problem to keep things warm in winter than to
keep things cool in summer.

Of course it is cheaper to pasture cows than to feed
them in the stall, but when all expenses are footed up,
month by month, I find that there is not much difference
among the twelve months of the year. Part of the sum-
mer wages are chargeable to winter, on account of the
gathering of harvests and filling of silos, so the outlay
is not wholly a matter of season.

A well-built cow stable is never cold. Hay, fodder,
ensilage, feed, water should all be within convenient
reach.

Preparation for winter dairying should begin the
previous spring, with the planting of ensilage corn.
This corn should have the best of culture, and should
be treated just as field corn is treated until September.
It has by that time fully matured, with well-glazed
grains. It is then harvested, taken at once to the barn,
run through a cutter, and put into the silo. Four
tons per cow per year is a safe allowance. A cubic

IOO

BIGGLE COW BOOK.

foot of packed silage weighs 40 pounds as previously
stated.

Successional plantings of corn should be made for
summer use in the dairy, to be fed on the soiling plan;
that is, cut green and carried to the cows.

Provision should be made in advance so that all
the cows shall drop their calves in the autumn, from
October to November.

The food ration should have careful study, because
with a stable of fresh cows it is desirable to work
for best results in milk with least cost of material
for food.

I fear that many dairymen burn up too much food
for fuel ; not literally, as some farmers burn corn, but
in the stomachs of animals, for heating purposes. The
barn is, perhaps, so cold that the animals must be
converted into stoves.

The winter food of a cow must
be both good and inexpensive. One
of the most famous dairies within my
knowledge a few years ago used the
following winter ration daily: Eight
pounds cut clover hay, 8 pounds
wheat bran, 8 pounds corn meal,
“snowball.” steamed and mixed. Of course a
high-grade of milk was produced, and this dairy could
afford the cost as its reputation was of the dollar-a-pound
butter sort. This ration is too expensive for general use.

Ensilage is the main reliance now for winter feed-
ing, and even the smaller dairies can afford a silo. A
round silo can be constructed quite cheaply. The
United States Department of Agriculture describes a

WINTER.

IOI

round silo of 180 tons capacity, 20 feet inside diameter
and 30 feet deep, which can be constructed at an
estimated cost of $246.59. This is a cost of only $1.37
per ton of storage capacity.

Here are a few protein analyses of silage for com-
parison. They should set dairymen to thinking about
the feeding possibilities of some other things beside

COrn silage: Average per

cent, of protein.

Corn silage 1.7

Sorghum silage 0.8

Red clover silage 4.2

Soja bean silage 41

Cowpea silage 2.7

Field pea silage 5.9

Corn and sorghum are both grasses in fact. They
are low in protein (nitrogen) the most expensive ele-
ment of mill feeds. Clovers, beans and peas are all
legumes, and are all rich in protein, and will quite
certainly be used some day for silage purposes.

Taking corn silage (now in common use) as a
basis for a good and cheap food for dairy cows, we
begin with its analysis ; or rather, with its digestible
analysis, as follows:

Protein.

Carbohydrates
and Fat.

Nutritive ratio.

Corn silage . .

1.1

18.2

1 : 16.5

This food as it stands has a proportion of sugars
and starches far in excess of the protein, and out of
proper proportion. Instead of 1: 16.5 we must try to
get down to the Wisconsin ration ( 1 : 6.9) or preferably
lower. The best and cheapest ingredients at hand
are, say, clover hay and wheat bran. Hence I suggest
the following, the cottonseed meal being introduced

102

BIGGLE COW BOOK.

for balancing the ration ; the ration to be divided so at
to cover a day:

40 pounds corn silage, 5 pounds wheat bran,

8 “ clover hay, 2 “ cottonseed meal.

This ration is a good one, and is not expensive.
Its nutritive ratio is about 1 : 5.9. Farmers must figure
out the ratio best suited to themselves and their crops.
A little figuring will enable a dairyman to substitute
dry corn fodder for the ensilage in this ration if desired.
In the latter case I would recommend the use of some
roots or pumpkins.

SHIVERS.

A stanchion-held cow lying down is sometimes tramped on by
a neighbor. Injured teats may result.

Winter dairying will never be overdone. Cold weather uses
up the fat.

Every shiver of the cow shakes money out of the owner’s
pocket.

Do not, as soon as the first warm spring day comes, turn the
cows out of their comfortable stable, and allow them to fill them-
selves with frost-bitten grass. It will only fill them, not feed them;
then, too, it is a very unhealthy filling.

If winter feed is bought let it be in late summer; it is cheaper
then.

Stone basement barns are apt to be dark, damp and chilly.

NO SHIVERS HERE.

LIBRARY

UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS
llfiBANA

PLATE VII.

’MOO AVMOTTV

Chapter XX.

POINTS ON MARKETS.

Small profits and prompt settlements in cash.— John Tucker’s Plan.

Happy is the dairyman who can join hands with the
consumer, and thus save the middleman’s sometimes
too generous profits. This is not always possible, of
course, because a great deal of milk, butter and cheese
must be sold wholesale.

Speaking in general terms the cost of selling a
perishable food product is just about equal to the cost
of its production ; that is, if it costs two cents a quart to
produce milk it will cost somewhere near two cents a
quart to retail it. Milk costing two cents should sell for
at least three cents wholesale, and six cents retail. This
would allow a margin of profit to both producer and
retailer. These figures are used merely for illustration.

The margin of profit on butter is estimated on a
different basis, because butter is far less perishable than
milk, and the risk of carrying it in stock is less. It
costs less to retail butter than milk because the holder
of milk must sell it quickly, while the holder of butter
is more independent and can wait a little for customers.
The retail profits on butter usually are but a few cents
a pound; perhaps just about as much per pound as the
best producers make on each pound of their output.

The only certainty of dairy profits lies in leading
instead of following the market ; and every dairyman

io4

BIGGLE COW BOOK.

is really his own judge, fixing to a certainty the market
price of his own product.

The old-fashioned forty-quart tin milk can is still
in favor in Pennsylvania for shipping milk. In New
England and elsewhere a much smaller can is used for
shipping purposes.

In the Philadelphia retail trade the
time-honored cans and serving kettles of
a past generation are still to be seen, but
their days are numbered.

The glass jar or bottle, with its close-fitting paste-
board cover (the cover to be used but once), is so evi-
dently superior in every way to the old-fashioned tin
utensil that glass is fast taking possession of the market.

Aside from cleanliness and fairness in distribution
of cream, the glass jar is superior in accuracy of mea-
surement.

One of the agricultural papers lately published a
letter from a farmer bearing directly on
this point. A retail milkman gives away,
^ is said, fifteen quarts to the hundred

“for good measure.” This seems to be
" ^ 1 common experience. The writer of the
milk bottles, letter sells over two hundred quarts per
day, at six cents per quart, and claims that the jars save
$2 for one day, and for 365 days over $700 ; or in ten
years $7000.

Retail dairymen, especially if pro-
ducers, do not usually measure closely.

They commonly pour in a little extra bottle carrier.
milk. It is this extra milk, according to the above,
that would pay for a good farm in ten years’ time.

POINTS ON MARKETS.

105

The glass jar is a measure in itself. No extra milk
goes with it. It protects both seller and buyer, and
milk thus shipped commands a higher price. The
bottles are of several sizes. The mouth is the same,
in all cases, and is closed by the same circular bit of
prepared pasteboard.

As the jars are filled when fresh everybody gets
the same proportion of cream, which is right ; and
being full, there is no churning.

It is easy to estimate the quantity and quality of
the bacteria which reach milk shipped in this excellent
manner. They are few and harmless.

Who can compare the modern glass jar with the
old-fashioned, big-mounted milk kettle that must be
opened and closed a score of times in the dirty streets
of a town or city, while the contents splash and churn
from the moment the first dipperful is removed ? Who
can estimate the number of hostile bacteria which must
of necessity get into milk so retailed, especially in
summer weather ?

The shipment of milk in glass jars will greatly
tend to encourage its use. Milk is one of the best and
cheapest of foods when in good order, but quite the
reverse when improperly treated. Health is one result;
bowel troubles the other.

I notice that the wholesale price of bottled milk in
New York City the past summer (1897) has been one-
half cent per quart higher than for milk shipped in bulk.

Butter quotations tell a story of their own. Butters
known to the trade as ‘ ‘ creameries ’ ’ are divided into
four grades, with just about a cent a pound between
them. Going down the scale are the “imitation cream-

io6

BIGGLE COW BOOK.

eries,” divided into three or four grades. The latter
are genuine butter, but are of distinctly inferior quality.
Then come the “special brands” of various sorts. In
the quotations before me at this writing (quotations
issued by one of the greatest firms in America) I find
prices for these special brands even better than
“creamery ex.,” which heads the list just mentioned.

The moral is simple. It means that successful
dairymen must get to the top of the market with a
special brand. It is within reach of all who work for it.
It is a matter of cleanliness, gumption and perseverance.

Quality being equal, a small parcel usu-
ally commands a higher price than a large
parcel, for the simple reason that there are always more
fifty-cent buyers than dollar buyers. Figure i shows a
shipping crate containing 48 one-pound boxes of butter.

In the cheese quotations (on the same sheet with
the butter quotations) I find the best prices are com-
manded by the full-cream brands which have made
and kept good trade names.

It has been a hobby with me for some years (a
theory, mind, not based on personal experience) that
there is room in America for many varieties of cheese
put up in small attractive packages. My cheese-making
experience is not wide, as to varieties, but I see the
eagerness with which the American public buys articles
of food which appeal to its fancy. A quarter or half
dollar is sure to be spent for a toothsome article which
appeals to the eye as well as to palate.

The American dairyman must regard himself in
more than one light. He is an individual engaged in
money-earning work, for personal advantage, and he is

POINTS ON MARKETS.

I07

also a part of a great public which is sometimes called
“the Government,” or “America.” The efforts of the
individual are necessarily limited in their scope, but
when aggregated under the larger term it is possible
to do great things.

There are good local markets for skimmilk, butter-
milk, cottage cheese, etc., that can be developed by
effort and good service. The local market is always
worth having.

As to selling cream wholesale there is promise at
this time of a general movement in America toward
what is known as the cream-gathering system. This
plan has grown up since the advent of the hand sepa-
rator. It leaves all the by-products on the farm, remov-
ing only the cream, which is very low in fertility value.
Hence the farm loses little or nothing, which is excep-
tional, as almost all agricultural products carry away
much fertility with them.

Under the cream-gathering system the most satis-
factory way of making settlements is for the central
factory to pay a uniform price per pound in cash for
actual butter fat.

CASH.

Wrong, all wrong, that the United States should export more
bogus butter than real butter. Let ’s see to it.

The milk producer should net at least half the retail price,
every time.

Poor butter paper molds the butter, and is a bad investment.
New and bright utensils always please buyers.

Many an article is sold by the neatness of its wrapper.

io8

BIGGLE COW BOOK.

Cuts of Beef and Veal.

The United States Department of Agriculture has
adopted the following terms for each of the different
cuts of a butchered beef and veal.

1. Third cut neck. 13.

2. Second cut neck. 14.

3. First cut neck. 15.

4. Third cut chuck ribs. 16.

5. Second cut chuck ribs. 17.

6. First cut chuck ribs. 18.

7. Third cut ribs. 19.

8. Second cut ribs. 20.

9. First cut ribs. 21.

10. Small end sirloin. 22.

11. Hip sirloin. 23.

12. Socket. 24.

1. Neck.

2. Chuck.

3. Shoulders.

4. Fore shank.

5. Ribs.

For Calves.

6.

7*

8.

9*

Rump.

First cut round.
Second cut round,
Leg.

Top of sirloin.
Flank.

Navel.

Plate.

Cross ribs.
Brisket.

Shin.

Brisket.

Breast.

Loin.

Flank.

Hind shank.

Chapter XXI.

DAIRY APPLIANCES.

No mere guesswork in the dairy. — John Tucker.

There is not a more useful and profitable thing
than the Babcock tester in the entire range of dairy
appliances. This instrument, or series of instruments,
fills a long-felt dairy want, and, I think, does its work
more accurately, quickly and cheaply than anything
else of its kind on the market.

It is primarily useful in enabling the dairyman to
know his cows and to accurately determine
the cost of milk production. To the cream-
ery man it is invaluable in the detection of
waste, either in defective skimming or de-
fective churning. There are several good '
testing systems on the market, including
the so-called Leffman-Beam and the Coch-
ran, but I will describe only the Babcock, because it is
in widest American use at this time.

Briefly, the Babcock test is an apparatus for de-
termining the amount of butter fat in milk ; or, it may
be said, for determining the actual value of milk,
because the value of milk depends on the total solids,
and the total solids vary in amount as the fat varies in
amount.

One chemical (sulphuric acid) is required, and the
process demands only ten or fifteen minutes of time.

iio

BIGGLE COW BOOK.

The cost per test is perhaps a quarter of a cent, and
several tests can be made at once.

The process is not patented, and any dairyman is
at liberty to use it, including the centrifugal or whirling
machine required for its operation. The Babcock
appliances are for sale at all dairy supply stores at
reasonable prices.

Full and minute directions for operating the Bab-
cock test are given in circulars sent out with the
machine, and I need only describe the principle
involved.

A given amount of milk is placed in a test glass

I and the same amount of sulphuric acid added

' to it. A milk test glass is shown Number i,

«=* Figure i. The solution takes on a dark coffee

I I j color, owing to the action of the acid on the
' j (j milk sugar. The acid first precipitates the
\J casein and then dissolves it. The fat is set
3 fig. i1 free> and is not acted upon by the acid.
Number 2, in Figure 1, shows the acid measure and
Number 3 is the pipette for measuring the milk.

The exact size of the test bottle is not impor-
tant, but the size of the neck and the accuracy of
the graduation marks are of vital importance. It
is essential that precisely a given amount of milk
be used in the sample bottle ; that enough acid be

used to liberate the fat ; and that the amount of

fat be accurately registered in the graduated neck
of the bottle.

The acid having been added to the milk, and
mixed therewith, the bottles are placed in the pockets
of the centrifugal machine and whirled for about five

DAIRY APPLIANCES.

Ill

minutes, at the rate of say 900 revolutions per minute.
The fat is thus all collected.

In order to get the fat up into the tube, so as to
be read, a little hot water is added, and the tube again
whirled in the machine for a minute or two. The
addition of this hot water will not affect the percentage,
since the exact amount of milk is already known, and
nothing remains except to get the fat into the accur-
ately-marked neck.

It is not even necessary that the fat should begin
at the zero mark in the tube. It can as well extend
from 2 to 6 as from o to 4. In either case there would
clearly be 4 per cent, of fat in the sample of milk.

Let it be understood that the neck of the test
bottle (which is toward the centre of the whirling
machine, when in motion) is so graduated as to accur-
ately show percentage marks (of a milk sample
weighing say 18 grams), regardless of the precise size
of the bulb of the bottle.

These percentage spaces on the neck of the bottle
are each subdivided into five parts, each of which
represents one-fifth or two-tenths of one per cent.

Good skimming (gravity or separator) will take
out all the butter fat from milk except about two-tenths
of one per cent. In 100 pounds of 4 per cent, milk,
yielding in theory 4 pounds of fat, this loss of two-
tenths of one per cent, in skimming would amount to
two-tenths of a pound of butter, or one-twentieth (5
per cent. ) of the amount of butter fat in the whole
milk. About as much is lost in churning, but the
butter gains weight by carrying water, etc., with it in
the final make-up.

1 12

BIGGLE COW BOOK.

U

f *

In actual creamery practice tests are made of com-
posite samples of each customer’s milk ; that is, of
samples made day by day and kept in a jar, thus
representing the average of a week or more.

A special bottle is used for testing skimmilk. It
has a side tube for the addition of the acid (a mere
convenience), and the graduated neck is much
smaller than in ordinary test bottles. This is
done to make small amounts of fat more accur-
ately read.

A so-called “ oil test churn,” for determin-
ing the butter value of cream collected in the
cream-gathering system of operating a butter factory,
is now offered for sale.

In this book I cannot mention even by name the
thousand and one conveniences now on the j
market. It is not my purpose to write a cata-
logue for a dairy supply house, but rather to milk
tell how to read a catalogue.

Beginning with the milk strainer, I must call atten-
tion to a device in which the milk flow is upward instead
of downward through the gauze. There are
two gauzes or screens, and I like this imple-
ment because it avoids pouring the milk di-
patent rectlY uPon the sediment arrested by the
strainer, strainer.

As to a milk cooler, I have already urged the choice
of the one doing the work well and which can be most
easily cleaned . This is equivalent to an endorsement
of a cooler where the milk runs over an exposed cold
surface, rather than through cold pipes. The objection
to the former style is that the milk may absorb bacteria

DAIRY APPLIANCES.

113

from the air with which it comes so freely in contact,
but this merely necessitates a cleanly atmosphere, apart
from the cow stable. An exterior surface may be made
clean, but the inside of a pipe is always liable to
suspicion.

The separator is now thoroughly established in
American dairying, and several rival machines are
upon the market. If we may believe the advertisements
published by the owners of these separators it must be
concluded that some of them are far less efficient than
others. But if we may believe the testimony of the ex-
periment station experts it is safe to buy any of them.

The power separator has already worked a great
change in American dairying, as shown
by the establishment of thousands of
creameries in the United States.

The hand separator seems likely to
work another change, almost as uni-
versal, as indicated in the growth of what «
is called the cream-gathering system. By 3
the latter plan only the cream goes to the factory,
instead of the whole milk as formerly.

As to hand separators, I am quite willing to accept
the verdict of the Pennsylvania station, to the
effect that the trials (ending March 20, 1897)

' showed very little if any difference in complete-
ness of skimming and total amount of fat
recovered in the cream. Considerable dif-
ference was noted, however, in ease of opera-
hand t^on and apparent durability of the several
separator, machines tested. No difference in character
of cream was found, and the conclusion was reached

BIGGLE COW BOOK.

114

that the choice of a hand separator should depend
largely on first cost and apparent durability.

It is held by some dairymen that a separator pays
with seven cows.

There are several patterns of glass jars or
bottles for the shipment of milk now upon the
market, some with temporary and some with per-
manent tops or lids. They are made in at least
four sizes, from half pints up to half gallons. The
bottle which most forcibly commends itself to me,
from personal observation, is the one with a paste-
board (or pulp) top; the top to be used but once.
This top is water-proof and prevents the milk
from spilling, and also prevents dust from enter-
ing the bottle.

There is a device for rapidly filling these
R comparatively small milk vessels; and wire
baskets are made for carrying them. Boxes
are provided for packing in ice, so that
* the jars may be kept cool for a long
time, and a foot-power washer has been
bottle filler, constructed to facilitate quick and thor-
ough cleansing of the returned vessels.

Here is a cream stirrer good for putting the cream
in the right condition for making gilt-edge butter. The
bottom is from six to eight inches across, and the top
two to three inches. It may be five to six inches high.
A No. 9 wire, galvanized, is used for a handle,
with which to push the mixer down and to lift it up
in the mess of cream. The effect is to stir the
cream and aerate it from the bottom to the topCJP
and to mix it most thoroughly.

DAIRY APPLIANCES. II 5

Ice tubs for holding cans of cream are sold by the
dealers in dairy supplies. The cream from such cans
reaches the consumer in a highly attractive and
palatable condition.

I mention this merely to emphasize the fact that
the retail trade (the best way to sell, where possible)
is influenced almost wholly by little details of this kind.
People buy what pleases them.

It is impossible to enumerate the tin vessels used
by dairymen, for these vessels are legion. 1 examine
the catalogues with great interest, and frequently get
useful ideas from these publications. Sometimes I can
buy articles cheaper and better a thousand miles from
home than in the city nearest to me ; and these cata-
logues tell me what other dairymen demand. Of
course every article in the many-paged catalogue repre-
sents somebody’s thought and experience.

A handy thing in any dairy is a good
circulating boiler for hot water as shown
in the illustration.

It was a good idea, for instance, for me
to buy some large, plainly-printed signs of
‘ 4 buttermilk, ” “ cottage cheese, ” “ fresh
butter,” etc., which were mentioned in one
of the catalogues. They cost me but a few cents, and
increased my sales in market.

Another thing, first seen in the catalogues, was the
convenient “ milk sack,” made of water-proof manilla
paper. I use them for retailing the above products,
including skimmilk, to people who would otherwise go
past my stall on account of having neither kettles nor
pitchers with them.

ii6

BIGGLE COW BOOK.

There is a milk-can jacket advertised for the pre-
vention of freezing in cold weather ; a “ power,” espe-
cially built for bulls, to run the separator ; a low-priced
steamer or boiler, for steaming feeds ; and a small and
cheap boiler and engine. These things, once to be
had only of various dealers (or not at all), can now
be found in all the dairy supply stores.

Finally, as to dairy cleanliness, let me advise wash-
ing, scalding, rinsing and sunning, in the order named.
Dairy implements, of all things, must be "kept sweet.

ORDERLIES.

Sunlight and fresh air and hot water are the cardinal factors
in cleanliness.

The odor of whitewash is the only allowable smell in milk
house or creamery.

There are many good butter workers on the market. Buy
that one which has greatest simplicity. Keep it clean.

Printing butter is as much of an art as stamping gold coins.

It is a great help in keeping a cow clean in the stable to shear
off the long hairs of her tail.

Getting milk frozen hauling it to the creameries is one cause
of poor butter. On very cold days the cans should be covered on
the way to the creamery.

Sunlight is death to bacteria.

When limited cash compels a dairy owner to do his own work,
instead of hiring it done, it is generally well done.

Keep things clean on the outside of the creamery. Ill odors
tell of lost fertility.

The milk wagon is an advertisement on wheels. Make it
attractive.

In all the range of household work no occupation is more
graceful for girls than butter making.

Neat prints will add ten per cent, to the price of butter.
Most manufacturers think ten per cent, a big profit.

One of the standard doctrines of modern dairy practice is that
disinfectants can never take the place of simple old-fashioned
cleanliness.

Have you tried clipping the hair from the hind legs of the
cows so they won’t get clogged with dung?

LIBRARY

UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS

mm

PLATE VIII.

Chapter XXII.

THE PUBLIC CREAMERY.

Don't hurry the cows and then waste time at the creamery . —

John Tucker.

A public creamery should be
a public convenience, saving much
drudgery. Managed properly, it
may be profitable, a good thing
in many ways for the community.
power churn. Success depends wholly upon an
abundance of cream and judicious management. Any
town may have a prosperous creamery if resident men
of average ability can be interested and at least 400
good cows absolutely pledged. The risks in the busi-
ness have been lessened greatly by the Babcock system,
the manager paying for only the fats he can make into
a salable article. No creamery can be run on a per-
manent basis of profit without the Babcock test or some
method equally reliable. All dangers to the life of the
enterprise have not been removed and never can be.
Tact in management is priceless. There are still many
sharks to avoid, who would wreck the owner or the
organization in building, in equipping, or in both
together, or in receiving consignments and making
inadequate returns or none. Many creameries have
been fitted up at $5000 to $8000 that should not have
cost over $3000 to $4500. And of course any concern
expected to pay reasonable dividends upon twice as

A MODEL NEW HAMPSHIRE CREAMERY.

THE PUBLIC CREAMERY. II 9

much stock as necessary could make but a poor show-
ing ; the patrons would get dissatisfied and withdraw,
making the supply of milk inadequate, and forcing
operations to stop. A creamery closed is hard to re-
open, as the confidence of the public must be regained.

Any individual or association of farmers convinced
that a creamery can be added safely and profitably to
the institutions of the place, should not inaugurate one
hastily. A careful canvass should be made to ascertain
how many dairies there are whose owners will pledge
themselves in writing to furnish milk from a stated
number of cows the first year. Any grants of land,
material and labor that public-spirited citizens may
make should be received gratefully.

Sometimes stockholders desire to pay for stock in
this way which they could not own otherwise. Ex-
perience proves that the best way is not to place the
contract for building and equipping with some concern
making a specialty of such things but to hire local
carpenters and masons of good repute under contracts
with carefully drawn plans and specifications and to
buy the boiler, engine, tanks, separators, pipes, valves,
etc. , where they can be secured to the best advantage',
quality considered. An equipment second-hand and
nearly new is offered frequently at a price that will
make its acceptance profitable.

Location is everything in keeping down labor bills,
for an unhandy creamery or one too large or too small
will require an extra hand, and here is a big leak in
good management. Location influences quality largely,
and only butter of finest flavor brings the highest price.
Since strictest cleanliness is essential, it is obvious that

120

BIGGLE COW BOOK.

the creamery must not stand in a swamp, nor where
good drainage is not feasible. Wash water or milk if
not carried completely away will pollute the air in three
days. If the creamery is situated so large quantities
of milk may be received and handled with little effort
on the part of the help, the milk running by its own
weight from the receiving room through strainers, vats,
separators, and again into the owners5 wagons, without
pumping or lifting, much is gained. Site, plan, equip-
ment, locating just right upon the site — all these should
be studied for months and many other plants visited
before a stick or brick is bought, or any contract given.
A studious contemplation of and comparison with
other creameries often reveal defects that may be
remedied easily in the plan before it is executed. A
large plant, suited to handling the milk from 1200 to
1500 cows, erected after such careful consideration, is
shown. It is run partly upon the whole milk and partly
upon the gathered plan and is a success. The whole
milk plan makes each dairy send its milk to the cream-
ery or to one of its separating stations at a stated time,
usually once per day, and is in wide use in the West,
while but little practised in the East. In the gathering
plan followed east and west the creamery sends teams
to collect the cream which is raised on the farm by
some system of setting or by hand separators. There
is but little difference in the methods followed east
and west, the old principle of cleanliness recognized
by our forefathers and mothers being considered the
great secret of success everywhere.

The creamery whose plan is shown here is 30 x 60
feet, built in a side hill and the system of gravity used

THE PUBLIC CREAMERY.

1 2 1

from start to finish. The whole milk that is received
is weighed in on the top floor, not shown, heated, and
piped down, down and out. A, is the fuel house ; B,
the office ; C, the ice house, 20 x 20 feet and 26 feet
deep, holding 200 tons ; D, a cool room adjoining the
cooler E ; F, windows ; G, doors ; H, a pier running
out to load butter and cream from ; 1, is the engine ;
2, boiler ; 3, separators ; 4, cream cooler ; 5, Babcock
tester, the line shaft shown crossing it is 10 feet above
it ; 6, steps to the half story where separators and

E

cream vats 7 are kept ; 8, is 300 gallon box churn into
which cream is run from vats ; 9, pulley to run butter
worker 10 ; 11, sink ; 12, pasteurizing outfit ; 13, drain
to which everything falling on work room floor runs.
Another drain catches the buttermilk let out of the
churn and leads it to a distance where it is put into
barrels on a wagon and finds its way to a large piggery.

Eastern or New England creameries market their
butter direct to stores and hotels, sending by express

122

BIGGLE COW BOOK.

in single cases at a time, mostly in pound prints
wrapped in parchment, instead of through commission
houses, as western creameries do.

A large supply of cold sweet water is among
essentials. Prosperous creamery managers every-
where have learned the importance of securing and
retaining a buttermaker of highest ability, faithfulness
and integrity.

Rigid rules should be adopted for the government
of patrons in their management of stables, cows and
milk. The following are excellent :

Cows should be driven quietly and treated gently for best re-
sults, should have pure water in abundance and none that is stag-
nant.

Salt regularly. Udders should be washed often.

Milk should be aired immediately by pouring or dipping and
then cooled as quickly as possibly to 6o° or lower.

No morning’s milk should be mixed with night’s milk until
chilled.

Pails and cans should be washed with warm, not hot, water to
get all milk from the seams and then scalded.

Milkers never should milk with wet hands.

Other rules may be added suited to the locality
adopting these.

GOSSIP.

Dairying requires the strength of a man and the patience of a
woman.

Skimmilk should be kept on the farm ; not given away.

The Thomas Parker Creamery, of Lawrence, Kansas, is one of
many similar large plants. It has 27 skimming stations, and a
cream car with its attendant makes daily collections, testing the
cream en route. The great St. Albans, Vt., creamery runs 67 sep-
arators and gathers mostly by rail.

The Babcock test has routed the unjust payment by space and
the old pooling of milk plan. It pays for the actual fat in the
milk, and careful breeding and wise feeding are encouraged.

Chapter XXIII.

VILLAGER’S ONE COW.

With a good cow and a good kitchen garden any family is
rich. — Dorothy.

The keeper of one cow or two cows cares but
little for the chemistry of feeds or
the arithmetic of dairying, but is
interested mainly in getting the
most and best milk for the least
money. I will therefore present a
few rations without fully discussing their make-up.

Pasture grass is the summer mainstay of the one-
cow dairy, and pasture grass is an almost perfect cow
food. The grass is usually supplemented with a little
bran and corn meal. Bran is rich in protein, which
goes direct to the milk pail ; corn meal is more apt to
lodge on the ribs in the form of fat.

All the edible waste from the kitchen should go
to cow, pig or chickens ; and if pigs or chickens are
not kept the cow will do much toward saving the waste
of good food. She will eat many vegetables, either
cooked or raw ; and even skimmilk may be used to
advantage in her feed box, upon cut feed of any kind.

The waste from the garden, including all corn-
stalks, makes good cow feed ; and the mowings of
the yard can be advantageously disposed of in the
same way. The family cow can be petted and pampered
in a manner quite impossible with a herd, and with
highly satisfactory results.

124

BIGGLE COW BOOK.

If there is room to pasture the cow, so much the
better. Otherwise an amazing amount of succulent
fodder can be produced on a few square rods of
ground, and cut as required. Always grow roots, such
as mangels and sugar beets. Pumpkins are excellent.
Cabbages, turnips and such things may be fed in mod-
eration, after milking.

No one has any right to allow stock to run at large.

No one is obliged to
fence stock out of, or
off their lands. Every
one is liable for all
damages their animals
do, if allowed to run at
large, or for trespass
upon others’ land s.
Animals must be gu'ard-
minding the roadside cow. ed or fenced in upon
their owner’s lands. This is common law. In New
York State road fences are being taken up, and the
grounds about dwellings are not enclosed. This saves
money and adds to the appearance of the farms.

A cow consumes of good hay (or its equivalent)
about 3 per cent, of her live weight daily ; or, in other
terms, the ration should include say 2 pounds of coarse,
bulky food (hay, fodder, etc.) and 1 pound of grain
per day per 100 pounds of weight of cow.

I would use twice as much bran as corn meal (by
weight) in making up a ration for a cow in milk. Of
course the corn meal would be necessary in larger
proportion in fattening an animal.

The family cow varies a good deal in weight.

villager’s one cow.

125

Perhaps 1000 pounds would not be much above the
American average, and the ration may be figured
accordingly. Here is a winter ration, to be divided
and used so as to cover a day :

15 pounds clover hay,

10 “ wheat bran,

5 “ corn meal.

(Nutritive ratio about 1: 5.6).

This is a good ration, but not the cheapest. It
may be supplemented with a few chopped sugar beets
or other roots, or with chopped pumpkins or apples.
The private dairyman as a rule does not have access
to ensilage, which yields succulent food where large
herds are to be supplied.

It does not require a big milker to average 10
quarts per day for six months and 5 quarts per day for
four months. This makes a total of say 5160 pounds and
gives the cow a resting period of eight weeks.

The one-cow dairyman must continue to depend
on the shallow pan system of setting milk ; a very good
plan where things are kept clean.

As to churning, I say churn often. Churn three
times a week for the best butter. Churn twice a week
for good butter. Ripen the cream at least 24 hours ;
then churn at a temperature of 65°
in winter or 6o° in summer. Much
is lost by allowing cream to stand
after it is ripe. An egg beater
will answer for churning a small
amount of cream. this kind.

The so-called grade or part thoroughbred is an
ideal family cow. My preference includes some of the

.126

BIGGLE COW BOOK.

Channel Islands blood, blended with any other good
stock.

Cows appreciate kindness, and will repay it. A
good grooming will sometimes be quickly followed
by an increased milk flow.

A fly sheet on the family cow will add to her com-
fort, and tend to larger productiveness and more
desirable milk for family use.

Here is a plan of a village barn suitable for a horse,
cow and carriage. It is about 20
feet square, and the shed attached
12 x 20. The floor shown through
the open door gives ample room
for carriages, sleigh, the lawn
mower, etc., besides room to unhitch, and clean har-
ness. The harness closet is on the
barn floor near the vehicles where no
ammonia from the stables can reach
it. The horse can be taken from the
floor directly into the stable without
going out of doors.

HORSE ft

CARRIAGES

\

GENTLENESS.

The dewlap is that hanging portion of the neck which during
grazing “ laps the dew.”

Always have fodder corn in midsummer.

No animal responds to good treatment so quickly as the cow.
Favors are acknowledged in terms of milk.

The villager’s cow must be quiet and docile.

Teach the cow to submit to a halter, and to follow easily
when led.

The lone cow often bellows for water. Keep her quiet by
supplying her reasonable needs.

Some cows are permanently discontented when alone. Such
animals do best in herds.

Never touch the butter with the hands.

Chapter XXIV.

THE MILK FARM.

Give all the clover possible. — John Tucker.

My object in conducting a milk farm is to make
money ; not merely to work out
new theories of dairy practice.
Still, I must confess to more than
one change of method within the
past quarter century, on account
of altered commercial conditions.

My fundamental rule is to
grow nearly everything at home,
and to sell off the least possible amount of fertility.
The farm is the source of raw materials, the dairy is
the factory where goods are made up, the cows are
the laborers, and s[ am the business manager. Of
course I never hesitate to sell farm produce when
prices are good, for then I can buy artificial manures.
But my main reliance for fertility is the covered
manure shed, where all manure is piled up in neat and
compact form.

My cows are all home-raised ; not that this plan
is so much cheaper, but because it is so much more
satisfactory than any other. There is a deal of pleasure
in shaping the career of a heifer calf two or more
generations in advance of her birth ; and I have
animals where three generations pasture side by side
and vie with each other in the dairy — with the grand-
daughters leading. I try to breed for winter milkers.

128

BIGGLE COW BOOK.

Dehorning is practised. A little caustic on the
calf’s head nips the horns in the bud. Some day, no
doubt, polled, or hornless bulls, will be relied upon for
the dehorning process. I read that a Galloway bull
will get hornless calves 99 times out of 100, from horned
cows ; but I use a lighter-built bull in my herd of milk
cows, and such bulls have horns. If the feeling against
horned cows continue, we shall presently hear of polled
Jerseys and polled Guernseys; but such strains are not
yet in the market. The only objection to dehorning
that I have yet heard (outside of the operation itself)

A CORNER OF A MILK FARM.

is that hornless cows crowd together too closely in the
pasture field, and may suffer from overheating on
very sultry days in summer.

I rely mainly on timothy, clover, Kentucky blue
grass and corn fodder ; but of course I have accepted
the silo and ensilage. And I am quite sure that
crimson clover has come to stay as far north as southern
Pennsylvania, and that other leguminous plants must
be recognized in our farm and dairy calculations.

I make no violent or sudden changes in my farming
operations, but shall be wide awake to what other

THE MILK FARM.

129

dairymen are doing in the way of growing leguminous
plants either for feeding, for ensilage, or for green
manuring. If pea vines and vetches are really worth
as much as the concentrated mill feeds, I propose to
save part of the feed bills.

Improvement can assuredly be made in our pasture
lands, both in preparation of the soil and in choice of
grass seeds. The soil preparation should involve
some manuring (as much as possible) and a greater
variety of grasses. Different grasses mature at different
dates, and the season of good grazing can be prolonged
by a wise choice of seeds. For a grazing field for cows,
in addition to the usual timothy and red clover, I use
Kentucky blue grass, herd’s-grass, and white clover.

It may be urged that some of these things come of
themselves, but I sow them when the ground is pre-
pared. It pays. Indeed, it will pay to sow grass
seeds without a grain crop of any kind, on manured
soil. Alfalfa does quite well where the subsoil is por-
ous. It is a clover in fact. I sow corn for summer
soiling ; also millet.

The milk farm should produce roots for stock
feeding, especially where ensilage is not used. Sugar
beets and mangels are desirable, and when sown in
rows and well cultivated by horse power .

an enormous tonnage per acre may be nTT ^

harvested. Turnips, rutabagas and
carrots are also desirable adjuncts to the
rations of a stall-fed cow ; five to ten pounds per day
per head is a sufficient amount of roots. Mangels
should be ripened by storage before being fed. Apples,
potatoes, pumpkins, etc., also have a place in the

BIGGLE COW BOOK.

130

autumn and winter ration, and are excellent when fed
in moderation and with good judgment. Corn fodder
should be housed or else compactly stacked near the
barn ; otherwise it is injured by the weather. Dairy-
men must learn to balance their own cow rations from
the feeds at their command.

MILK TALK.

There ’s money in the pea plant and its allies — the beans, tares
and vetches. Clover is in close kinship too.

Grow all the clover possible.

Eighty per cent, of the manurial value of foods is returned in
the manure. Take care of it.

Cows with leaky teats should be milked three times a day.

It is poor policy to teach a cow to let her milk down only when
being fed.

Throw a ripped-open fertilizer bag over a fly-teased cow at
milking time.

Many a man has made many a penny by combining calf with
skimmilk.

Keep the cow’s fly brush clean.

Pure water, not tainted water, for the cow’s beverage.

Remember the salt. Use a little powdered sulphur, too, when
salting the young stock.

If a cow is not a deep drinker she cannot be a deep milker.

Never before has so much been expected of the cow. Now
she will not pass muster with a high test and a long pedigree.
She must give also a fair quantity and be an all-the-year-round
milker.

The day has gone by when it is considered cheaper to buy a
cow than to raise one. Not that there are not cows (things) for
sale, but the thinking dairyman knows how hard it is to find
profitable cows, even at ruinous prices.

The output of choice butter and cheese is enormous, but the
demand for it is still more enormous, and on the increase. Lucky
the man who can lead in quality or in a choice specialty.

To know how to get the largest cash return from home grown
stuff, usually roughage, by combining it with the right kind and
quantity of bought foods, is to know how to make the dairy pay.

Milk is wasted at the rate of half a pint to a quart per cow by
some milkers because they fail to hold the pail properly while,
milking. The loss occurring twice daily is a big one in a year.

Chapter XXV.

AILMENTS AND REMEDIES.

Good care is the farmer'' s best cow doctor. — Dorothy.

Let sick or maimed animals lie still. Do not tor-
ture them by trying to get them up. Rub their limbs
every day and keep a soft bed under them. They will
get up when they are able.

If a cow look poor and weak, put a blanket on
her, keep her in a warm place, and feed her some corn
meal and middlings, and some oats. Give her warm
drink, and stir a little cheap flour in it. Do not let her
run clear down. Look ahead.

If cows are accidentally left out in a rain and seem
cold, put them in the stable as soon as possible and
rub them well. If they shiver, put blankets on them
until they are dry. If there is inflammation or hardness
in the udder, bathe it thoroughly for at least half an
hour, and rub gently until thoroughly dry.

If this does not effect a cure put a warm flaxseed
poultice on the udder, which can be
held in place by means of an eight-
Itailed bandage. This should be
[^ changed twice a day until the hard-
ness and soreness are gone. Of course, the cow
should be milked out two or three times each day.

Now I will speak of some vices and their cure.
Vicious bulls are generally rendered civil by dehorning.
A ring in the nose is sufficient in some animals. To
put ring in nose secure the animal by tying securely

132

BIGGLE COW BOOK.

by a rope around the horns. With a sharp knife or
large sack needle puncture the membrane between
the nostrils and insert the ring. A few links of heavy
chain fastened to the ring by a spring hook is useful
in very bad animals.

To keep bulls from injuring or killing persons, in
place of dehorning fix a blind over the eyes, of
stout, heavy leather, attached to a head halter. It
will make the animal comparatively harmless. The
same plan will prevent fence-break-
ing in any of the cattle kind. See j
that the fastening does not cut the
skin around the horns. It may be .
said that dehorning will quite an- * the breachy cow.
swer, but this is a mistake. Watch the muley bull.

Or fasten a light but strong stick or slat from tip
to tip of horns. A strip of oak or hickory, or other
tough wood, one and a quarter inches thick, one
and three-quarters to two inches wide and two
inches longer than the extreme width of horns is all
sufficient. Bore holes in the end to admit the tips
of the horns and fasten on with screws, and the job
is complete.

A cow that sucks herself is a bother. She may
be prevented doing so by a necklace made from old
broom or fork handles, strung on a strap and
buckled around the neck. It should be fitted
*to the cow and the sticks made long enough
to keep her from putting her head on her side and not
long enough to chafe the shoulders or throat when the
head is not turned ; or a hollow bit may be used; or a
wide leather around the nose filled with sharp nails

AILMENTS AND REMEDIES.

133

pointing outward. Sew on a strap to buckle over the
top of the head.

Cows become kickers through training, not by in-
herent badness. A strap placed as in the
picture and buckled tight will stop her kick-
ing. A kicker is not benefited by cruelty ;
try kind treatment ; if it fail, try again.

If cows are found gnawing bones in the pasture
when they should be eating grass or chewing the cud,
it shows that something is wrong with the herd or the
pasture.

Steers and dry cows rarely acquire the habit, and
it is more common in extra good than in poor milkers.
It usually prevails where cows have been kept in the
same pasture many years by day and taken out nights.
It may not be cured at once by changing to richer feed,
but I have never known cows to chew bones very long
after being given abundant rations of wheat bran and
clover hay, or other food containing abundant propor-
tions of bone-making material which the milk must
have.

If cows are not fed a variety of food they will eat
horse manure to get the salts out of it. In the horse
manure are soda, magnesia, salt, phosphoric acid,
potash, nitrogen and lime. Give such cows bran, salt
and fine meal.

OF DEHORNING.

This may be done at any age, but best done as soon as the horn
buttons are perceptible, by touching the young horn and surround-
ing skin with a stick of caustic potash. Wrap the caustic stick
with paper to protect the fingers, moisten the unwrapped end with
water and apply to a circular spot not larger than a silver quarter

134

BIGGLE COW BOOK.

dollar. Vinegar is a good antidote to caustic potash and should be
applied at once to hands or any part of skin accidentally touched.

Young horns may also be removed by strong knife before the
horn becomes tightly fastened. Make a circular cut around the
horn, then cut well beneath it and lift the young horn out.

Horns of adult cattle may be removed by a sharp saw, but the
dehorning implements now in the market are much better. The
advantages of dehorning are that the animals become more docile,
the timid ones in the herd are not annoyed, and cruelty is not
practised upon one another.

OP' THE DIGESTIVE ORGANS.

If a cow get a foreign body in the mouth turn her head towards
the light and remove it.

For Choking, examine throat and neck; if offending object is
felt, attempt to force upward into the mouth by pressure of hands
below the object. Give one pint linseed oil or melted lard. May
sometimes reach with hand by holding tongue aside. Do not push
a stiff stick or fork handle down the throat; a piece of rubber hose,
well greased, is less likely to ruin the cow.

If a cow has Bloat or Hoven there will be a drum-like swelling
on left side in front of hip, caused by green food, wet or frosted
clover, overfeeding, choking. Give one-half teacupful table salt
in water, as drench. Exercise. If not relieved give aromatic
spirits of ammonia, two ounces, well diluted, every hour.

EwtA — -sBgs- Where there is great danger of suffocation a punc-

fig. i. ture of the paunch may be made with a knife or better
yet by an instrument here shown (Fig. i.), the trocar and canula.
It consists of a sharp blade in a tube about half
an inch in diameter and eight inches long.

When the puncture is made the trocar is with-
drawn and the tube remains, allowing the gas
to escape. Figure 2 shows the point, equally
distant from the point of the hip and the last rib,
where the puncture should be made.

Impaction of Paunch is caused by over- fig. 2.
eating, and the symptoms are failing appetite, solid or doughy
swelling on front of left hip. Give one to two pounds Glauber salts
dissolved in water; follow every three hours by drench of mixture
of equal parts common salt, nux vomica powdered and capsicum.
Dose, one tablespoonfuh

AILMENTS AND REMEDIES.

135

In Colic the symptoms are uneasiness, striking belly with
hind legs, lying down and getting up. Cause, change of diet, rapid
feeding. Give Glauber salts, one pound in water; warm water
enemas. Give every hour one ounce each of laudanum and
sulphuric ether, diluted.

Constipation caused by dry, coarser food and lack of exer-
cise, is treated with green food, linseed meal and exercise; give
pint of raw linseed oil. DiARRHCEAis treated with starch gruel or
flour and water and dry food.

Scours in calves is caused by overfeeding, bad food or drink,
damp stables, dirty surroundings. Remove cause and withhold
food the best remedy. Give once daily twenty grains potassium per-
manganate in tincup of water; also use same for enema.

Cows are subject to Founder, showing sudden tenderness in
two or more feet ; feet hot and may crack around top of hoof. This
comes from overfeeding. Give Glauber salts one pound, twenty
drops tincture aconite every two hours. Keep feet moist by wet
pasture or wet cloths.

Garget or Swollen Udder, due to cold, injuries, overfeeding
or heating food. Bathe frequently with warm water; dry, and
apply warm lard. Milk often. Give internally two-drachm doses
salicylic acid and one drachm soda bicarbonate in one pint of
milk four times daily.

OF THE BREATHING ORGANS.

Discharge of Mucus from nostrils indicates catarrh from
exposure, dust, or pollen of plants. Allow animal to breathe steam
from water containing pine tar.

In Sore Throat there is difficulty in swallowing, food returns
through nostrils. Steam as in catarrh, give tincture belladonna
one-half ounce every six hours. Rub throat with equal parts
turpentine and sweet oil.

In Bronchitis there is dry cough first, then loose, and dis-
charge from nostrils ; rattling sound in windpipe. Steam as in
sore throat and give tincture aconite twenty drops every two hours
and two drachms muriate ammonia in one pint of water three times
daily. For bronchitis in young stock due to worms in windpipe,
which sometimes occur in autumn where they are pastured late,
give one ounce turpentine and six ounces sweet oil well mixed,
three times a week. Take from pasture and feed liberally.

BIGGLE COW BOOK.

136

In Pneumonia there is loss of appetite, animal standing, rapid
breathing, pulse frequent, extremities cold. Cause, exposure or
neglected bronchitis. Place in a warm, dry, well-ventilated stable,
apply to chest equal parts turpentine and alcohol and cover with
blanket. In beginning give tincture aconite twenty drops every
hour. If not better in two days discontinue aconite and give one
ounce tr. digitalis every eight hours.

In Pleurisy there is fever with rapid pulse, animal stands,
grunts on moving or when chest is struck, has a short painful
cough. Treat same as for pneumonia; give also one drachm
iodide of potash twice daily.

OF THE SKIN.

Sore Teats are caused by scratches from briers, bites of in-
sects, dirt, exposure, also from the contagion of cow pox at milk-
ing. Remove cause and use milk tube if necessary; apply to sores
after milking small quantity of mixture glycerine four ounces and
carbolic acid one drachm. In cow pox milk affected cow last and
apply to sores mixture glycerine four ounces, water eight ounces,
chloride of zinc twenty grains.

Warts on teats or other parts are generally easily removed by
sharp scissors; dress wound as advised for sore teats.

Mange causes great itching and generally starts at root of tail
or top of neck ; cause, a minute parasite. Wash with soap and
water and dry, after which apply lard which destroys the parasite.

For Lice and Ticks apply daily a tea made by adding one
pound quassia chips to three gallons of boiling water. Ordinary
sheep dip is also effective. Carbolic acid is one of the most effec-
tive agents against parasites. It should have a dilution of about
one hundred times its bulk of water. Kerosene emulsion is good
for lice on cattle, killing both adults and eggs. To make, dissolve
one-half pound hard soap in one gallon hot water and while still
near the boiling point add two gallons kerosene oil. Churn or
agitate until emulsified. Use one part of this emulsion to eight or
ten parts of water and use as a spray, wash or dip.

In Ringworm there are circular spots of baldness covered by
gray or yellow crust; caused also by a parasite. Wash with strong
soap and water and apply pure creolin once daily for a week.

Foul Claw or Hoof Distemper causes lameness in one or
more feet, swelling and heat around top of hoof, and bad smelling

AILMENTS AND REMEDIES.

137

discharge around edge of hoof and between the claws. Cause, dirty
stables, standing in stagnant water or mud. Trim off all loose
horn, clean by wiping with dry rags, wet sores twice daily with
mixture chloride of zinc one ounce, water one pint.

Overgrowth of Hoof from standing in stable should be filed
off with rasp.

OF VARIOUS INJURIES.

When chaff or other dirt gets into the eye syringe or sponge
the eye frequently with clean cold water containing sulphate of
zinc one grain to each ounce of water. Keep stable darkened.

Sprains (generally below knee or hock), causing heat
and lameness with tenderness at point of injury, should be
bathed with warm water or with laudanum three parts, lead
water one part.

Wounds, if bleeding much, fill or cover the wound with clean
cotton dipped in cold or quite warm water, and secure firmly with
bandage; examine for foreign bodies, as splinters, nails and dirt.
Do not fill wound with cobwebs to stop bleeding. Remove the
bandage before swelling takes place ; one application of bandage
usually enough. Keep animal quiet first day, then allow exercise.
Keep wound clear and apply carbolic acid water 5 per cent, or
creolin and water 1 to 10. Do not apply grease to wounds. If proud
flesh forms apply daily enough powdered burnt alum to cover.

For an Abscess or cavity containing pus caused by bruises,
etc., open freely and syringe with 10 per cent, creolin solution.

Lockjaw, a constant muscular spasm involving more or less
the entire body, is caused by the entrance of tetanus germs through
a wound. There is stiffness of whole or part of body, more fre-
quently the jaws, making eating difficult or impossible. If animal
can drink give one-half ounce doses bromide potash five times
daily; dissolve and place on food or gruel or in water given to
drink. Do not drench, and keep quiet.

OF THE GENERATIVE ORGANS.

Inversion of Vagina most frequent in springers, caused most
frequently by stalls too low behind. Treat displaced parts with
warm water and replace them. Place cow in stall eight inches
higher behind than in front until after calving.

Inversion of Womb occurs after calving, same cause as above
and treatment the same; get womb placed well forward.

138

BIGGLE COW BOOK.

Sterility in bull is sometimes caused by high feeding and
lack of exercise. Give nux vomica one drachm and capsicum one-
half drachm once daily. In cow may be temporary, following
abortion; if from other cause, seldom recover. Try same remedy
as for bull.

Abortion is a frequent and troublesome malady, occurring
generally at about seventh or eighth month. Cause may be due to
injuries or to contagion. Separate at once when suspected; after calf
is born syringe the womb with one gallon warm water containing
one ounce creolin. Repeat daily as long as any discharge is seen.
Afterbirth should be removed about third day after calving. Dis-
infect stables thoroughly. Do not let cow take bull for at least two
months after aborting.

Retained Afterbirth is generally due to premature birth ;
should be removed on third or fourth day. Blanketing, warm
stable, warm drinks may help. If necessary to remove by hand,
should only be attempted by qualified person, otherwise it is ad-
visable to allow it to remain.

Inflammation of the Womb is indicated by fever, loss of ap-
petite, straining. Caused by injuries in calving or to attempts at
removal of afterbirth, and is generally fatal. Give two drachms
salicylate of soda every four hours and syringe womb with warm
water and two ounces creolin to the gallon.

Milk Fever or Parturient Apoplexy, a disease peculiar to
cows, appearing not later than three days after calving, never
occurring after first calving, and rarely before third. The cow is
weak and staggers when moved and goes down unable to rise,
appetite fails, the head is thrown to one side and rests with nose
on the ground; bowels do not act — she may become totally uncon-
scious, breathing first slow, becoming more rapid. Preventive
treatment is best, exercise, laxative food, prevent excessive fatten-
ing, give one pound Glauber salts if necessary to keep bowels
loose ; give good box stall for calving ; avoid cold air and water
before and after calving, milk before calving if bag be distended.
If disease develops give at once one and one-half pounds Glauber
salts dissolved in hot water, also warm water enemas. Keep cow
propped on breast by bundles of straw, cover body with blanket,
apply cold water or ice bag to the head. Give every two hours
two ounces each of aromatic spirits of ammonia and sweet spirits
of nitre in cold water. Use great care in drenching; the throat being

AILMENTS AND REMEDIES.

139

more or less paralyzed, choking is likely to occur. She should be
turned often and milked.

OF SOME OTHER SERIOUS MALADIES.

Tuberculosis — Consumption is a contagious disease caused
by a germ called “Bacillus Tuberculosis.” The symptoms are
not well marked in early stages ; advanced cases show loss of
flesh, a short, dry cough, diarrhoea, irregular appetite, enlarge-
ments about throat, head or in udder, and also symptoms ofbron-
chitis, pleurisy and pneumonia when these diseases frequently
become complications. Generally requires months or even years
to destroy the victims; all the while the patient may communicate
the disease to other animals and to man. This disease can be
detected in its earliest stages by injection of tuberculin, after
which the temperature in the affected animal is elevated. The
test is very delicate and trustworthy in experienced hands. There
being no known cure for tuberculosis, and the products of diseased
animals being unsafe to use, the true course is to first apply the
tuberculin test, which is done by many states without expense to
the owner, and diseased cattle killed and paid for; and second,
thoroughly disinfect stables to prevent reappearance.

Actinomycosis (Lump Jaw) is a contagious disease due to a
germ known as “Ray fungus.” There are well-defined swellings
about the jaw, head and throat, or may be on the tongue or in the
lungs. These soften and open after a time and discharge matter ;
appetite good until well advanced. The treatment is, remove by
surgical means ; late experiments indicate iodide of potash two
to three drachms daily to be a cure. Advanced cases should be
killed at once. The meat should never be used for food.

Milk Sickness (Trembles) is a disease of cattle communi-
cable to man and other animals by use of meat or milk ; dry cattle
most commonly and far more severely affected. Milch cows may
transmit this disease through the use of their milk and yet show
no trace of the disease themselves. The symptoms are trembling
upon least exertion as walking, great prostration and delirium.
Treatment is only prevention ; do not use pastures known to pro-
duce this disease ; unbroken land of certain districts unsafe.

Rheumatism is shown by hot, painful swellings at the joints,
generally the hocks, stiffness in walking or maybe unable to rise.
Bathe joints with camphor and alcohol and give internally two

140

BIGGLE COW BOOK.

drachms salicylate of soda every three hours until four ounces
have been given ; keep warm and dry and give laxative food.

Texas Fever, a disease of southern cattle which, when trans-
mitted to northern cattle, is generally fatal in a few days. The
spread of the disease is generally due to ticks; those from diseased
animals contain the germs of the disease and by their bites trans-
mit it. The indications are a high fever, staggering gait, urine of
reddish brown to black, great prostration, unconsciousness, death.
Most common in summer months ; unknown in the north after
heavy frost. Prevention, avoidance of cattle from southern fever
districts ; dipping of southern cattle to destroy the ticks.

POINTERS ON DISINFECTION.

The germs of disease are so small that only the most com-
plete methods will render an intected building safe.

Remove all litter, dirt and dust from floor, ceiling and walls.

Old wood-work, as troughs, racks and flooring had better be
replaced by new.

All wood-work allowed to remain should be scrubbed at least
three times with hot water and washing soda.

After each washing apply with whitewash brush or, better, a
spray pump, carbolic acid and water, one part of carbolic acid to
fifty parts of water.

Earth floors should be removed to depth of at least three
inches or deeper if saturated with drainage and new earth or
cement substituted.

Do not apply whitewash and consider disinfection complete.
Germs are well preserved under a coat of whitewash and cause
trouble after whitewash peels off. So destroy the germs with
carbolic spray before applying the coat of lime.

Let the light into the stables ; it is death to many disease
germs.

Chapter XXVI.

ROUND-UP.

The higher the aim in dairying the better the achievement . —
John Tucker.

Aim high !

Keep in mind the milk record of
the noble Holstein-Friesian cow, “ Pie-
tertje 2d ” — over 30,000 pounds in one

The J ersey cow, ‘ ‘ Princess 2d, ” produced 46 pounds
and 12 y* ounces of butter in seven days ! “Bisson’s
Belle,” a Jersey, yielded 1028 pounds of butter in a
year !

Do not be contented with the present United
States average of only 3000 pounds of milk and less
than 200 pounds of butter per year.

These high marks cannot be equaled, perhaps, by
ordinary methods, but the low marks can be exceeded,
to a certainty, by any dairyman who will study his
business.

Holstein-Friesians and Jerseys are not the only
cattle with great American records.

Dairy herds are improving, but I cannot help
noticing many scrub cows in the fields. Bank robbers
I call them.

Scales and the Babcock test are the enemies of
the scrub cow.

The silo will become universal, of course ; and
peas will be used for silage as well as corn.

142

BIGGLE COW BOOK.

The thoroughbred bull will push the scrub bull to
the wall, and the home-raised cow will increase in favor.

Advance in the science of breeding and feeding
will be accompanied by advance in factory work. The
factory system is not yet on a settled basis. Much is
yet to be learned about separators, about butter making,
about cheese making, and about marketing.

The wisely-fed calf will make a gain of a pound in
live weight for every pound of digestible dry matter in
the food ; and animals two years old will gain a pound
of flesh for every ten or eleven pounds of digestible
dry matter fed to them.

To sum up the whole matter. I look for future
dairy profits to come from better cows, from careful
weighing and testing of milk, from scientific and hence
economic feeding, from superior and well-marketed
products, and from good care of the manure.

Below are given the secretaries of the various
Cattle Clubs and Breeders’ Associations of the United
States from whom information may be obtained:
Aberdeen- Angus, Thos. McFarlane, Harvey, 111.

American Holderness, Truman A. Cole, Solsville, N. Y.

Ayrshire, C. M. Winslow, Brandon, Vt.

Brown Swiss, S. Fish, Groton, Conn.

Devon, L. P. Sisson, Wheeling, W. Va.

Dutch Belted, H. B. Richards, Easton, Pa.

Galloway, F. B. Hearne, Independence, Mo.

Guernsey, Wm. H. Caldwell, Peterboro, N. H.

Hereford, C. R. Thomas, Independence, Mo.

Holstein-Friesian, F. L. Houghton, Brattleboro, Vt.
Holstein-Friesian (Western), J. H. Coolidge, Jr., Galesburg, 111.
Jersey, J. J. Hemingway, 8 W. 17th St., New York, N. Y.

Polled Durham, J. H. Miller, Mexico, Ind.

Red Polled, J. C. Murray, Maquoketa, Iowa.

Shorthorn, J. H. Pickrell, Springfield, 111.

ROUND-UP.

141

DONT’S.

Don’t have the stalls so low at either end that the internal
organs gravitate from their proper positions.

Don’t have feed or water troughs so deep that animals cannot
reach the bottom without discomfort.

Don’t forget to have the new cement floor of stable roughened
to prevent slipping.

Don’t allow cold wind to blow on cattle through cracks and
openings in stable wall.

Don’t forget that continued good health requires proper feed-
ing. good air, sunlight and exercise.

Don’t adopt for a feeding motto “ Something for nothing.”
Feed much and doctor little.

Don’t allow the cows to be pestered by flies. Pasture at night
only, if the flies are unbearable.

Don’t turn the cattle in the wet or frosted clover; it may cause
bloating.

Don’t strike or chase a cow with an apple in her mouth, she
will swallow quickly and may choke.

Don’t allow cows to eat decayed or old, withered potatoes;
they contain a poison which is very fatal.

Don’t throw bones where cows can getdhem ; they will likely
become fast in the throat or mouth.

Don’t allow paint cans or painters’ rags within reach of cattle ;
lead poisoning is generally fatal.

Don’t allow cattle access to large quantities of salt ; they will
sometimes eat enough to result fatally.

Don’t allow cattle in the orchard. They destroy the trees,
and the fruit if large may choke the animals.

Don’t invite foul claw by allowing animals to stand in stag-
nant water, mud or filth.

Don’t compel animals to drink dirty, stagnant or icy water.

don’t run the cows.

INDEX.

Aberdeen-Angus Breed . . 17

Abortion 138

Ailments and Remedies . . 131

Analyses of Feeds 51

Ayrshire Breed 14

Babcock Milk Test .... 109

Beef Clubs 92

Beef, Cuts of 108

Bloat 134

Breathing Organs 135

Bronchitis 135

Brown Swiss Breed .... 18

Butter Colors 77

Butter Increasers 82

Butterine 81

Butter Making for Novice . 78

Buttermilk 96

Calf, Feed for 32

Cattle Clubs 142

Cheese 83

Choking 134

Colic 135

Constipation 135

Creamery, Floor Plan of. . 120
Dairy Appliances .... 109

Dehorning .... 28, 128, 133

Devon Breed 16

Digestive Organs 134

Disinfection 140

Durham Cattle 16

Dutch Belted Breed .... 17

Ensilage 48

External Cow, Parts of the, 9

Founders 135

Galloway Breed 17

Garget 135

Generative Organs 137

Guenon Theory 27

Guernsey Breed 14

Hereford Breed 15

Hides * . . 96

Holstein-Friesian Bleed . . 15
Hoof Distemper ..... 136

Hoven * . . 134

Inflammation of Udder . . 132

Jersey Breed 13

Kickers 133

Lice and Ticks 136

Lockjaw 37

Lumpjaw 139

Manure, Care of . . . . 55, 97

Milk Fever 138

Milk in Jars 104

Milk Preservatives .... 69

Norfolk Polled 18

Oleomargarine 81

Oxen, Training 37

Pleurisy 136

Pneumonia 136

Ration for Dairy Cows . . 44

Red Polled 18

Rheumatism 139

Ringworm 136

Scours 135

Shorthorn Breed .... 16
Silage, Analyses of . . . 101

Sore Teats 136

Sore Throat 135

Sprains 137

Sterility 138

Sterilized Milk 70

Suffolk Polled 18

Texas Fever 140

Tuberculosis 139

Veal, Cuts of 108

Vices 132

Warts ... 136

Wolff’s Feeding Table . . 43
Womb, Inflammation of . . 138
Wounds . . 137

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