Rensselaer Union, Volume 7, Number 10, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 November 1874 — Have You Provided a Winter Cow? [ARTICLE]

Have You Provided a Winter Cow?

Who is not fond of milk in some shape? We think it would be difficult to find the individual; and yet, as a rule, milk is harder to get in the country thai* in the . city, if a person be so unfortunate as to have no cow. Instead of having the milk delivered as in the city, it must be bought by the individual requiring it, who is often then obliged to pay higher prices than in the city, even if then the delivery of milk may not be considered a favor. The reason is that farmers, who of all men should have a bountiful supply, often find themselves in the winter restricted to a few strippings obtained from cows that are roughing it in the yards entirely on dry food. The horses are kept in comfortable stables and carefully led, bedded, curried and brushed. The fattening cattle, sheep and hogs are as carefully cared for, but the cow, which is expected to furnish an important nourishment and the basis of many delicacies to the family, is too often left to shift as best she may. It is no wonder that she doles out grudgingly small and decreasing quantities oi very blue milk.

There is no animal kept in winter on the farm that should receive, nor that will pay better for extra care, than the too-often-abused cow. She is a machine that responds to the demands upon it in exact proportion to its perfectness of construction and the care bestowed upon its working parts. If warmly housed and fed liberally with plenty of rich food, including, if possible, succulent vegeta bles: if this be done there is no difficulty in always having an abundance of rich milk in winter. If roots cannot be obtained, bran should be provided, to be given in the form of a thin slop, so that the animal can drink it; for the abundance of water taken by the cow adds largely, not only to the quantity of the milk, but also to the quality, since it enables the animal to assimilate the products of the food more fully than it otherwise could. By this we do not mean that the cow supplied with diversified food and plenty of liquids and giving ten or fifteen quarts per day of milk will give milk as rich, quart for quart, as the animal fed on rich dry food, with only a sufficiency of water to enable it to be passed through the animal. In this last case the very small quantity obtained will be exceedingly rich; but an animal properly kept, and in full flow of milk, will be found to furnish the elements of milk very much irrexless of one pobrly cared for, however richly fed. The lack of milk in winter among the average farmers of the country is one of the crying evils of the homestead. When once the fanner learns how easy it is to have an abundance, and that the daily care bestowed is not onerous, thereafter but little difficulty will be experienced by the housewife in inducing the purchase of a uew cow when needed, if circumstances were such that the farm failed to provide one. Generally, if no better plan can be realized, extra care and feeding to a couple- the latercalving cows will carry the household along until the new cows begin to come in during the latter part of winter. At all events, those farmers who have not already provided for au abundance of milk this winter should immediately do so. Plenty of milk will save in so many w ays as amply to pay all the cost and still leave a large margin beyond.— Western Rural. *