Rensselaer Union, Volume 11, Number 36, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 May 1879 — Knowledge In Dairying. [ARTICLE]

Knowledge In Dairying.

Our present low prices ought to work a complete revolution in the dairyman’s plan of operations. The great mass of dairymen heretofore have counted on tho number of their cows, instead of the amount of their product. In fact, they have not studied tho individual character of their cows—nor itavo they established any standard by which these shall be tried. They ace judged as a herd, and no effort is made to determine the value of each cow. With butter at 15 to 20 cents per pound, and cheese at 7 to. 9 cents, a poor cow is the poorest kind of investment. A yield of 2.500 to 8,000 pounds of milk will pay, after deducting the expense of delivery at the factory and cost of making, only from $12.25 to sls. This will not pay the cost of keep in any part of the country. A loss of from $lO to sls per cow would be incurred with each animal. But the dairyman has other cows that pay, even in these times, from $25 to $35, and it is these better cows that prevent a disastrous, failure. How utterly inexcusable in a dairyman it. must be to go On, year after year, re'aining his.unprofitable cows to eat up all possible profits from the better ones! What would be thought of a chair manufacturer who should make a style of chairs, year after year, and sell them at 25 per cent, below the cost of production, simply because he had not taken an account of the cost of manufacture? Yet, the dairymen who have an accurate knowledge of the production of each individual cow in the herd, do not amount to more than one in a hundred. But if the dairyman would study his business thoroughly, he would fix a standard below which no cow can pay him a profit, and consequently any animal whose yield falls below this, must be discarded. With the most satisfactory prices, a cow giving less than 4,000 pounds of milk pays no profit worth having; and now, when prices are very low, the standard should be advanced to 5,000 pounds per cow. Selected herds average 6,000 to 7,000 pounds, and there is no insuperable difficulty in raising the standard for the poorest cow to 5,000 pounds. A cow that will not, under good food and care, reach tbis standard, should be fattehed and sent to the butcher. She has no value to the progressive dairyman as a milk-producer for cheese. For the cheese factory she is judged wholly by her weight of milk; but if the standard is to be fixed for butter, then the weight of good butter and not the weight of milk is most important. This requires a separate test of each cow for butter. And here it may frequently happen that the cow that would be discarded for cheese would be accepted for butter-making. A yield of 200 pounds of butter per cow should be the lowest standard for a butter cow; 200 pounds of the best butter will bring as much moneyas 500 pounds of the best cheese. Some cows will average a production of 1 pound of butter to 20 pounds of milk, and thus 1,000 pounds of milk from such a cow will reach the standard. The first test—that of weight—is so easily made that no‘ dairyman can have a valid excuse for omittingitr A small spring scale, hung in a convenient place in the cow-stablc, with a small book, containing the name of each cow, and a pencil attached, will enable the milker to weigh and record the yield of each cow, one day in a week, with no appreciable loss of time. These weighings added, and the sum divided by the whole number of weighings, will give the average yield per day with sufficient accuracy. There is no reliable way of determining the butter yield, except in churning the cream, and weighing the butter. The future successful dairyman must study and fully understand all the factors in the problem. Skill is the sign by which'he must conquor. Knowledge and skill are required in the successful engineer, navigator, shipbuilder, surgeon, statesman, and these are no less needed by the successful dairyman. liural New Yorker.