ClassSJ-EM 
 
 BooIc.j_IL^ 
 
 COPYRIGHT 
 
-i 
 
STOCK AND STALKS 
 
 A Book for the Dairy Farmer 
 
 BY 
 
 J. R. ROBERTS 
 
 President Roberts Sanitary Dairy 
 Lincoln and Sioux City 
 
 Henry Westfall, Sales Agent, 126 So. 11th Street 
 Midwest Bldg., Lincoln, Nebraska 
 
 (All Rights Reserved) 
 
l\ ^ 
 
 Copyright, 1921 
 
 BY 
 J. R. ROBERTS 
 
 g)CLA605924 
 
 MRR-l 192! 
 
STOCK AND STALKS 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 INTENSIVE VERSUS BY-PRODUCT DAIRYING 1 
 
 CHAPTER n 
 
 THE DAIRY TYPE _ 17 
 
 Capacity 
 Texdexcies 
 Physical Defects 
 Diseases 
 
 CHAPTER ni 
 
 THE PURE BRED SIRE 23 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 WHAT TO FEED 26 
 
 Chemical Analysis 
 
 Balanced Rations 
 
 Pastures 
 
 Hay 
 
 Corn Fodder 
 
 Silage Without Corn 
 
 Silage 
 
 Grain Feed 
 
 Prepared Feeds 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 HOW TO FEED 44 
 
 Balanced Rations 
 
 Water 
 
 Calf and Heifer Feeding 
 
 Chemical Analysis 
 
 Rations for the Dairy Cow 
 
Contents 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 VARIATIONS IN MILK TESTS 56 
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 SUGGESTIONS FOR CONSTRUCTING A BARN 61 
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 MILKING 63 
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 MILK PRODUCTS 66 
 
 Butter 
 
 Cheese 
 
 Cottage Cheese 
 
 Cream 
 
 Skim Milk 
 
 Whey 
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 MARKET MILK 74 
 
 Weight of Milk 
 Legal Requirements 
 Cleanliness 
 Sanitation 
 Cooling Milk 
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 EXPERIMENTS BEING TRIED OUT ON OUR DAIRY 
 FARM 83 
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 DIFFERENT POINTS OF VIEW 92 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 In writing this booklet I hope to put into it in- 
 formation valuable to the average farmer who keeps 
 cows. I make no claim for this little book as an 
 addition to dairy science. It is rather a subtrac- 
 tion. I mean that I have been careful to include 
 only the most essential information. Where a great 
 mass of scientific data is gathered, it takes discrimi- 
 nation to distinguish between matters of great and 
 less importance. To do this discriminating and to 
 point out the most essential things, as I see them, 
 is the purpose of this undertaking. 
 
 Those who wish more detailed information can 
 easily find it prepared by those who have studied 
 this matter in detail. I have not. In my experi- 
 ence in the dairy business I have tried to use to the 
 best and most practical advantage the scientific 
 knowledge that I could acquire from others. My 
 experience has all been an effort to apply science to 
 business. It has been a business experience, not 
 one of research and investigation. There is much 
 that I have found to be of no particular use to me. 
 
Introduction 
 
 but there are many things that I have found to be 
 of great importance. 
 
 Science digs out facts, figures, data, knowledge, 
 or whatever it may be called. To take facts of 
 science and make use of them in business is one 
 thing which Webster's dictionary calls an art. This 
 booklet, then, may not be classed as science for the 
 writer is not so very scientific; it is not in itself 
 a work of art for the writer is not strong on artis- 
 tic ability; but is written on the art of keeping 
 cows and paying the feed bills. 
 
Stock and Stalks 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 INTENSIVE VERSUS BY-PRODUCT 
 DAIRYING 
 
 Agriculture as a science is comparatively new. 
 It is not like civil engineering, for instance, which 
 is taught about alike in all places, and much of it 
 the same as was taught a generation ago. Since I 
 can remember most of what is now known about 
 dairy science has been discovered. It is not sur- 
 prising, therefore, that as the various ideas and 
 doctrines come out they have both adherents and 
 opponents. It takes time to clarify a situation and 
 to prove what is the right conclusion. Some blame 
 our agricultural colleges for not knowing more and 
 knowing it sooner, and for spreading what we now 
 know to have been in some cases misinformation. 
 But the course taken was really the only one pos- 
 sible. Experiment stations have to try out a lot 
 of theories in order to find which are wrong and 
 
2 Stock and Stalks 
 
 which are right. At present there are many things 
 still unknown and much difference of opinion. If 
 the discussion which follows seems to differ in some 
 respects with recognized authorities, I still think 
 that I may be right; and if wrong, I claim as good 
 a right as any one else to make mistakes. 
 
 Here are some things to think about. At one 
 time there were more real dairy cattle in Lancaster 
 county than there are at present. There were fair- 
 ly large herds of grade Holsteins producing milk 
 where now there are scarcely any cattle at all. In- 
 tensive dairying at one time had a fine start in Lan- 
 caster county, but now there is not a herd large 
 enough to be called a dairy, except those owned by 
 purebred breeders. The city milk supply comes 
 from a large number of farmers who produce milk 
 as a side issue. The methods of feeding and car- 
 ing for cattle on these farms is in the main con- 
 trary to the instructions given by the dairy depart- 
 ment at the State Farm. The men who made dairy- 
 ing a business here were learning and following agri- 
 cultural college methods. They had good grade 
 dairy cattle and produced fully twice as much per 
 cow as do the farmers now in the business. They 
 all quit because it did not pay. 
 
Intensive Versus By-Product Dairying 3 
 
 It so happens that I was one of the men thus en- 
 gaged. I had a fine herd of fifty high-grade Hol- 
 steins that were producing as much milk as is now 
 being produced by thirty of our average dairy farm- 
 ers. My herd was sold after losing money for two 
 years. We were in a cow-testing association at the 
 time and the fine records made by these cows helped 
 to sell them at a public sale. Right in sight of the 
 agricultural college all that had been accomplished 
 seemed to fade away, and the old red cow, which 
 dairy science has tried for a generation to kill, 
 came back to the very skirts of the city. Just 
 now if every dairy cow in Nebraska would be 
 slaughtered, their milk would hardly be missed 
 but if the old red cow would go on a strike, not a 
 wheel in any creamery of the state would be tunn- 
 ing next week. 
 
 Why this remarkable turn of events? Well, there 
 are two theories. One of these lets the agricul- 
 tural college and all of us out without disgrace 
 and is something of a slam on the farmer. The 
 other gives the farmer credit for having more 
 sense than we had. Certain it is that the farmer 
 milking his beef cow produced milk for less than 
 we Holstein men could do it. The first theory is 
 
4 Stock and Stalks 
 
 that the farmer did not know his costs and there- 
 fore kept right on while the deficiency came out 
 of his hide. The second is that the farmer had 
 us beat on the cost of production. Is one or the 
 other of these theories correct? It must be. It 
 would be like taking the hot end of a poker for me 
 to argue that the farmer is a fool and to have one 
 of his number remark that, even though he was, I 
 went out of business against his competition. 
 Some one else will have to argue that side. I have 
 a different explanation. 
 
 In my judgment the difference came about in the 
 general rise in price of labor, grain, and alfalfa. 
 The milk that we produced was like a garment 
 cut out of new cloth — it all cost real money. The 
 farmer's milk was largely produced from corn 
 stalks, wheat pasture, stubble fields, and draws 
 pastured — material that must either be turned into 
 milk or wasted. It had scarcely any market value. 
 Our methods and our cattle were superior to his 
 in many ways, but not enough to make up the dif- 
 ference in the cost of feed. The common method 
 on the farm is to pasture corn stalks during the 
 winter. It is a very wasteful method of feeding 
 but it requires no labor. The cows gather the corn 
 
Intensive Versus By-Product Dairying 5 
 
 that was missed in the field and eat the leaves and 
 husks. Few cows may be kept on a farm where 
 such methods are in use, but figuring the stalk of 
 no value, such methods produce the cheapest but- 
 ter fat in the world. The farmer had us beat on 
 the cost of production. He did not feed grain and 
 forget to figure its value. He fed the grain that 
 the buskers left in the field. It had no value ex- 
 cept as it came to the milk pail. 
 
 When the Dairy Cow Needs a Friend 
 
6 Stock and Stalks 
 
 At one time I worked on a ranch in western 
 Colorado where a large number of range cattle 
 were wintered. Alfalfa in that community was 
 selling for three dollars a ton, but we fed it to the 
 weaker cattle only. The strong ones could live on 
 sage brush which cost nothing. Sage brush was 
 not a better feed. It was not nearly so good, but 
 the advantages offset the disadvantages. So it 
 was with us. The advantages of the two systems 
 were weighed and ours found wanting. 
 
 The average farmer's cow is a "scrub." She 
 usually goes dry for three or four months of the 
 year and, even when fresh, gives about half what 
 a developed dairy animal should give. Why do 
 farmers persist in milking ''scrubs," then? Have 
 we not all told them better? I'll say so! Hol- 
 steins and Jerseys are not so rare that farmers 
 do not know what they are. Most farmers have 
 owned a few but have gone back to the old red 
 stand-by. Why? Are we wrong again? 
 
 In Wisconsin, Michigan, Illinois, Ohio, and all 
 over the east the red cow is disappearing. People 
 there do a great deal more of dairying than we do. 
 Who knows the business better, they who do dairy- 
 ing as a business or we who do not? But argu- 
 
Intensive Versus By -Product Dairying 7 
 
 ments are of no use when they go against known 
 facts. The color of the cow is the result of a con- 
 dition. The red cow has been better suited to a 
 farmer's conditions and requirements. Dairy cat- 
 tle can not rough it like beef or dual-purpose cat- 
 tle. Where the custom is to stable feed and give 
 good care to cattle, dairy breeds naturally take 
 the lead. Where the dairy business is a side is- 
 sue, and besides giving milk a cow is expected to 
 face cold winds and to withstand periods of semi- 
 starvation, the dairy type is not in it. 
 
 The strong, lean, well-developed dairy cows that have 
 never been weakened by starvation or cold. 
 
8 Stock and Stalks 
 
 To understand the cattle business we must under- 
 stand the fundamental principles upon which the 
 various kinds of cattle are built. Hereford cattle, 
 for instance, are a pure beef type. The beef ani- 
 mal is trained and perfected in the tendency to 
 save everything to itself and to load up with fat 
 and muscle. Some Hereford cows can hardly raise 
 their calves because of the tendency of the mother 
 to save all her nourishment for her own strength 
 and protection. The cow boys on the range rarely 
 think of milking a cow that has lost her calf. The 
 typical beef animals give so little milk that they can 
 go dry at any time even on good grass with little or 
 no injury to themselves. Some dairy cows would 
 die even though sucked by a big husky calf if they 
 were not milked, because they give so much more 
 than the calf could take. The dairy cow is bred 
 and trained for generations to digest all she can 
 and to give it all away, keeping nothing with which 
 to protect herself against hard times. She builds 
 no big muscles with which to climb mountains, or 
 wade through mud and snow drifts. The beef ani- 
 mal if treated like a dairy cow simply gets fat and 
 is finally turned to the butcher. The dairy cow 
 treated like a beef cow is a tragedy to behold. I 
 
Intensive Versus By-Product Dairying 9 
 
 have seen both Holstein and Jersey steers out on 
 the range where Hereford cattle stay fat and strong 
 and I have heard the cow boys cuss about letting 
 them live, for they were more of a ghost than a 
 reality. Cussed they were by men and God-for- 
 saken, so it would seem. Since even the steers 
 can not protect themselves to live where the Here- 
 fords will thrive, what can we ever expect of a pro- 
 ducing cow? When she has given all away then 
 goes up against the period of short pasture or semi- 
 starvation, she begins immediately to readjust to 
 meet the new conditions. But the work of genera- 
 tions can not be undone in a life time and she fails 
 to meet the emergency and loses the vitality she 
 naturally possesses. 
 
 The red farmer's cow is often called the dual-pur- 
 pose animal. She is about half way between the 
 beef and the dairy. She protects herself well but 
 not to the limit as does the Hereford. She produces 
 milk well but not nearly so well as do the highly- 
 bred and highly-developed strictly dairy types. Not 
 one of these three types of cows will do to substi- 
 tute for any other. Each has a place to fill and 
 each is the best animal in her place. There is 
 nothing more foolish than to substitute the dairy 
 
10 stock and Stalks 
 
 breeds for common cattle before we substitute the 
 dairy man for the farmer or else convert the 
 farmer to the dairyman's methods in feeding. The 
 corn stalks and waste feed make the cheapest milk 
 and the red cow is the most economical means of 
 converting such feeds into milk, provided we want 
 only a small production with the least possible ef- 
 fort. It takes more labor to prepare feed for ani- 
 mals and feed it to them than it does to let the 
 animals range around over the field and do the best 
 they can. If farm dairying is to be carried on in 
 the future just as it has been in the past, the red 
 cow is the farmer's best friend and he is not a fool 
 for recognizing her as such. 
 
 This is not a pet theory of mine. It is a con- 
 clusion that I have had to swallow against my will. 
 The situation has nothing of promise for the fu- 
 ture. If we become a dairy state, we will have to 
 put more labor and effort into milk production and 
 do more like they do in other states. The stalks 
 left standing in the field, feeding but a few thick- 
 skinned cattle make the cheapest milk, only in case 
 we figure the by-product feeds as of no value. We 
 could produce a great deal more cattle for beef and 
 for dairy purposes if we utilized what we now 
 
Intensive Versus By-Prodiict Dairying 11 
 
 waste. If all the corn in our state was shocked 
 this year, think how much good feed would remain 
 after the grain is husked out. Think how many 
 cattle might be wintered. The stalks from one 
 acre of average corn if properly conserved yield 
 nearly enough rough feed for one cow during the 
 entire winter. Fifty acres yield fully enough for 
 forty head of cattle. Of course we should use al- 
 falfa for part of the ration but alfalfa is our cheap- 
 est feed that is not a by-product. Grain will be re- 
 quired for cattle that milk, but raising calves and 
 keeping dry stock is as much a part of milk pro- 
 duction as anything else. All such cattle can be 
 well-nourished and developed without grain. It will 
 not pay to refine them to such an extent that they 
 can not live on rough feed. 
 
 But conditions are changing again. Labor, grain, 
 and alfalfa are all coming down and land is high in 
 price. We will not long be taking only what we 
 can get the easiest. The time is at hand when we 
 are going to imitate the packer who saves all but 
 the squeal. The conditions existing in the eastern 
 states will be found here. I do not know how soon 
 but they are coming. It will be a long time before 
 the specialized producer can compete with the by- 
 
12 Stock and Stalks 
 
 product feeder, but the latter is going to save more 
 of what he has and use it to better advantage as 
 soon as he can get labor. Dairy products are go- 
 ing to be in great enough demand to pay the extra 
 labor costs. I do not look for all of the system to 
 be reversed. The farmer's idea of feeding cattle 
 what could be used for nothing else has been and 
 will still be his salvation. Those of us who pro- 
 duced nothing but milk were wrong, from the 
 standpoint of economy, in my opinion. What I look 
 for now is a combination between the two systems. 
 Cows will be taken care of as well as we cared for 
 our high producers, there will be a change in the 
 methods of caring for feed, but a large part of 
 the feed will be the by-products of other farming 
 operations. What is the use of feeding all green- 
 backs when we can make use of feed that costs 
 nothing? We could produce more milk by using 
 specialized methods altogether but we can make 
 enough without, and it will be cheaper. 
 
 But the standard methods, that always have 
 been and still are taught, are altogether intensive. 
 Every one talks of high records. There is not 
 enough talk of low-cost records. 
 
 A few years ago there was pubhshed in the Ne- 
 
Intensive Versus By-Product Dairying 13 
 
 braska Farmer the cow-testing association records 
 of herds in Lancaster county. SOme of these herds 
 yielded a large production and others yielded much 
 less. But the herds that produced less yielded at a 
 higher rate of profit. The difference was in the 
 amount of grain and expensive foods consumed in 
 proportion to the production. During the last few 
 years those who have fed grain and alfalfa as we 
 used to feed, have found it diflflcult to meet ex- 
 penses. We used to be taught that, since a cow re- 
 quired so much to maintain her body whether she 
 produced milk or not and only the amount she con- 
 sumed above that amount could be available for 
 milk production, it was well to feed as much grain 
 as possible without injuring the cow or reducing 
 her flow. But the price of feed must be reckoned, 
 as all admit now. And if grain is too high the 
 larger proportion of our milk must come from the 
 cheaper feeds. At present the grain market looks 
 very bad and intensive dairying would be more 
 profitable now than it has been for a long time. 
 
 But the combination, which I think is ideal, will 
 be the best proposition all of the time. In all fur- 
 ther discussions in this booklet I refer to dairy 
 breeds exclusively for I believe that the tide is 
 
14 ■ Stock and Stalks 
 
 turning and if the red cow and the old methods are 
 still to take the le^d, it is a waste of time to study 
 dairying. If farmers wish to increase their milk 
 production and find their way clear to devote more 
 time to their cattle, this discussion may be of some 
 assistance. 
 
 Dairy cows have certain definite requirements. 
 One of the most important of these is that they go 
 through no periods in which they do not have all 
 they want to eat of at least good grass or good hay 
 or roughage. If the grass begins to get a httle 
 short in the summer, we must not neglect to feed. 
 Another important requirement of the dairy cow is 
 that she be not exposed to hardships such as coV'' 
 winds and rains. Starvation and storms, these two 
 things above all — we must guard the dairy cow 
 against. 
 
 I will describe how I think dairying should be 
 conducted for the most profit on the farm so that 
 the by-products may be utilized to the fullest ex- 
 tent practicable and at the same time the dairy type 
 cattle may be kept producing to good advantage. I 
 am not inventing this system, for I am describing 
 the common practice of the people in the dairy 
 states. In Wisconsin, Michigan, arid Minnesota cat- 
 
Intensive Veisus By-Product Dairying 15 
 
 tie are kept largely on by-products. In the cheap 
 feed lies the profits. 
 
 Elsewhere I have described my own methods of 
 handling pasture, the idea of which came from Eu- 
 rope. But as to winter feeding, the whole eastern 
 part of the United States sets a good example. I 
 would want one or two silos, small in diameter but 
 tall. I would want one acre of alfalfa and one acre 
 of pasture for every cow that I expected to keep. 
 If we have a large number of young stock, the pas- 
 ture would need to be increased. I would fill these 
 silos with corn, grain and all, and use the silage to 
 feed only the cows giving milk. I would use a 
 Smalley feed cutter with snapping attachments and 
 use cut-up dry fodder containing no grain as the 
 principal feed for the dry cows and all young stock 
 on the place. The farmer usually milks only one- 
 half as many cows as he has cattle all together. 
 By using 'THnk's Perfect Silo Seal" to protect the 
 silage it may be fed all summer whenever needed 
 without waste. What stalks remain to be pastured 
 may be pastured by the milk cows and so may 
 wheat be pastured during good weather. I would 
 depend upon by-product feed for dry cattle and for 
 part of the milk cow's ration. The amount of grain 
 
16 Stock and Stalks 
 
 that is in corn silage is never too much for any 
 cow that is giving milk, but silage, corn and all, is 
 too expensive for cattle that are not milking. 
 
 By such methods the eastern farmer easily keeps 
 at least twice the number of cattle that the average 
 farmer here is now keeping, and still he takes but 
 little more of his land away from other farming 
 operations. The intensive dairyman uses all that 
 he raises for his cows and usually buys some be- 
 sides. The by-product farmer in Nebraska has 
 been in the habit of setting aside hardly any acre- 
 age for the use of his cattle. But the combination 
 is positively a success and would have long ago 
 been more in use in Nebraska had not the labor 
 situation presented difficulties almost impossible to 
 overcome. My farm is small and borders on the 
 very edge of the city. Intensive dairying is the 
 only thing practical for me even though I can not 
 expect to produce as cheaply as farmers differently 
 situated. I am re-stocking the farm this year. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 THE DAIRY TYPE 
 
 Capacity. The first thing that we look for in a 
 dairy cow is capacity — capacity to digest feed and 
 to turn that feed into milk. The digestive and 
 mammary systems of the cow should be strongly 
 developed. On account of the location of these or- 
 gans the dairy type of cow is wedge-shaped, being 
 wider and deeper at the rear. Her wedge-shaped 
 body, however, should be fairly wide over her heart 
 and lung section, for she is required to breathe a 
 great deal of air and to have great blood circula- 
 tion. Her udder and milk veins should be well-de- 
 veloped. The four quarters of the udder should be 
 fairly uniform in size. Her milk veins are more 
 likely to indicate her history than her capacity, for 
 no cow has very large veins until they have been 
 developed by heavy milk production. Still in all 
 good dairy heifers you will find well-established 
 milk veins carried fairly well forward. These 
 things indicate the capacity of the animal. 
 
 Tendencies. We must now determine her ten- 
 
18 Stock and Stalks 
 
 dencies. She must not convert her food into beef 
 nor must she destroy her energy by nervousness 
 and a tendency to too great physical activity. The 
 head of the cow should be clean-cut and lean, the 
 neck long and lean, and the shoulders narrow at the 
 top. The joints should be open so that a man's fist 
 could be thrust between the cow's front leg and her 
 body. The cow should not be beefy at the rear. 
 Even though she be fat she should not be of a 
 square beef type. The udder should be attached 
 high behind and the thighs should be narrow. In 
 fact, we want a cow that is not an "easy keeper" 
 but that will milk out clean. The cow should be 
 soft skinned and fine haired. Beware of the wild- 
 eyed, nervous, quick-moving cow for she wastes her 
 energy. Beware of the sluggish cow for she will be 
 sluggish in appetite and will convert her feed into 
 fat instead of milk. Perhaps the best way to de- 
 scribe the disposition of a good dairy cow would be 
 to say that she is alert and intelligent but calm and 
 sensible. 
 
 Physical Defects. If you find that you have a 
 cow with the capacity and the tendency to produce, 
 it is time to look for the physical defects in the ani- 
 rtial. Probably more men fail to notice physical 
 
The Dairy Type 19 
 
 defects than any other thing, when buying cattle. 
 Begin by examining the mouth of the cow. The 
 age of the cow can be approximately told by look- 
 ing at the front teeth. If the cow is young, her 
 teeth are square, flat, and close together. When 
 the cow gets older, they are round and wedge- 
 shaped and tend to separate. At about twelve 
 years the cow begins to lose some of her front 
 teeth. In judging a cow's development and possi- 
 bilities her age must always be taken into con- 
 sideration. 
 
 The eye must look bright. A sick cow usually 
 shows it in her face and in the way she holds her 
 head with her nose sticking a little too far forward. 
 She has lost her spirit. If the skin is rough, it is 
 likely to indicate in some cases poor digestion and 
 in other cases coarseness. In either case we do not 
 want the cow. The thin form of the good milk 
 cow without an ounce of surplus flesh must not give 
 the impression of debility, but of efficiency and 
 strength. The cow having digestive trouble is 
 usually shrunken in the paunch and has the appear- 
 ance of her skin being drawn tightly around her 
 body in front of the udder. She should not be 
 constipated, nor should she have scours. 
 
20 Stock and Stalks 
 
 The udder should not be meaty. After a cow 
 is milked, her udder should be nearly like an empty 
 sack. Each teat should be milked to see that it 
 contains no evidence of garget. Each quarter of 
 the udder should be felt to see that it contains no 
 portion slightly more soHd than the others. The 
 teats should be examined for slight lumps which 
 have usually been caused by rough milking and 
 which may make a lot of trouble. 
 
 Diseases. Tuberculosis in cattle is a disease that 
 is more contagious among barn-fed cattle than 
 among those kept more in the open. In fact, I 
 have never heard of range cattle being tubercular. 
 Nevertheless, under conditions that exist on the 
 average farm, the tuberculosis germ will thrive and 
 cause havoc. It pays to be careful not to introduce 
 such a disease into the herd. Ofter the fattest, 
 sleekest cattle are affected and while they do not 
 die from it quickly, yet as it progresses in a herd 
 an animal will now and then die from the disease. 
 Hogs and even chickens running with the cattle be- 
 come affected and much loss results. 
 
 The accuracy of the tuberclin test in the main 
 has been established beyond doubt. Laws now re- 
 quire that cattle which are shipped from one state 
 
The Dairy Type 21 
 
 to another be tested, and the infected cattle can not 
 be legally shipped except to a slaughter house sub- 
 ject to inspection. However, many cattle are 
 shipped under false certificates sworn to by un- 
 scrupulous veterinaries. The only thing that we 
 can do about it is to be careful in buying, deal with 
 responsible men and buy the cattle guaranteed. 
 
 The number of cattle infected in Nebraska is 
 probably about two per cent in the average farm- 
 ing districts and a much higher per centage among 
 the strictly dairy herds of some sections. While 
 we do not feel that we are ready for a law com- 
 pelling all cattle to be tested, we do feel that each 
 individual should protect himself and keep his herd 
 free from infection. Bovine tuberculosis is not so 
 contagious among human beings as it was once 
 thought to be. But it is enough so that no further 
 argument should be necessary to an owner of stock 
 than that his own family or some one else may be 
 infected with the disease from the milk. 
 
 Next to tuberculosis, contagious abortion is prob- 
 ably the milk producer's worst enemy. I do not 
 know of any way for a farmer to detect this dis- 
 ease from an animaFs appearance. I usually look 
 for evidence, not in the cattle themselves, but on 
 
22 Stock and Stalks 
 
 the farm premises of the man who has cattle for 
 sale. Be suspicious of any cow that does not readily 
 get pregnant. When buying fresh cows always en- 
 deavor to see the cow's calf. This is not a doctor 
 book. I need not discuss the symptoms nor the 
 cure. I only wish to warn the buyer to be on the 
 lookout. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 THE PURE BRED SIRE 
 
 There is one law of breeding that does not seem 
 to be recognized by people generally and in our 
 judgment it is of greatest importance. This law- 
 is that the influence of the parent animals are not 
 equal upon the offspring. This has been noticed in 
 human experiences. No child is exactly one-half 
 like his father and one-half like his mother, but is 
 likely to be much like either one or the other. He 
 is likely to be nine-tenths like one parent and one- 
 tenth like the other. It is the same in grading live 
 stock and this trait in breeding is of the greatest 
 advantage to the breeder of grade stock. If the 
 calf takes after the sire and the sire is a pure bred 
 of strong type, the calf may be nearly as strong in 
 producing ability as the pure bred ancestors. On 
 the other hand, even pure bred cattle may breed 
 back at times, and their offspring resemble some 
 distant scrub member in the ancestry. Breeders 
 are well aware of this fact and try very hard to 
 keep all inferior cattle entirely eliminated from 
 
24 Stock and Stalks 
 
 their line of breeding. It is important that they 
 should for their line should breed as true as possi- 
 ble, and really poor calves with them are rare. 
 
 The pure bred bull of a long established type is 
 more likely to mark his offspring than is the scrub 
 cow. A fairly large per cent, considerably more 
 than half, of the heifers will be good and some of 
 them nearly as good in milk production as the pure 
 breds themselves. Grade cows are very valuably 
 as milk producers, but grade bulls should not be 
 used as sires because they do not have the ability 
 to breed true like the pure bred. 
 
 Most farmers have been in the habit of using a 
 bull a couple of years and then selling him to the 
 butcher before his real worth was discovered. A 
 bull's ability to produce heifers that make good 
 cows can only be definitely told after his heifers 
 have freshened and made records. Some of the 
 best pure bred breeders in the United States will 
 not use a bull on their best cows until one hundred 
 of his daughters are in the Advanced Registry 
 which means that beginning at the age of two 
 years they must produce 250.5 pounds of butter fat 
 annually and must increase the production to 360 
 pounds of butter fat at the age of five years. In 
 
The Pure Bred Sire 25 
 
 this way the best bulls are ascertained and are 
 used to the best advantage. But there is also a 
 way for the average farmer to receive the benefits 
 of a good tested-out breeding stock at low cost. I 
 refer to the co-operative bull associations and quote 
 from Kimball's Dairy Farmer concerning them: 
 
 "A co-operative bull association is a farmer's or- 
 ganization whose purpose is the joint ownership, 
 use, and exchange of three or more high-class pure 
 bred bulls. The territory covered by the associa- 
 tion is divided into three or more breeding blocks 
 and a bull is stationed in each block for the service 
 of the fifty or sixty cows in the block. Every two 
 years the bulls are interchanged. Thus, at a small 
 cost, a bull for every sixty cows is provided for six 
 or more years. The cost of bull service is greatly 
 reduced, the best bulls obtained, and the bulls of 
 outstanding merit are preserved for their entire 
 period of usefulness." 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 WHAT TO FEED 
 
 Chemical Analysis. The chemical analysis of 
 feed does not by any means tell the whole story. 
 Wheat straw, for instance shows up very well in 
 chemical analysis but experiments have shown 
 that it takes more energy to digest it than it pro- 
 duces. Even when we figure only the digestible 
 nutrients, the nutrients which by chemical analysis 
 are found to be digested by animals, we do not by 
 any means have the whole story. For instance, 
 in human food we find that the protein in milk 
 is about four times as valuable as the protein in 
 the bean. In the results of a feeding experiment 
 reported in Dr. McCollum's ''Newer Knowledge of 
 Nutrition" on page 75, it was found that when 
 the source of protein was the bean, four times as 
 much was required for maintaining the body weight 
 of the animal as when the source of protein was 
 milk. We used to figure protein as protein and car- 
 bohydrates as carbohydrates but now we discrimi- 
 nate. We must learn to figure them in the results 
 
What to Feed 27 
 
 they produce. This is extremely difficult to do 
 scientifically. When an animal must have a variety 
 of feeds who can tell just what proportion of her 
 production is due to certain foods eaten? 
 
 We can get at these things in a general way, 
 however, by experience. Feeding has long been 
 known as an art. Some day it may be entirely a 
 science. But that can not be said at the present 
 time. We must vary the feeds used and learn by 
 experience and observation what gets the best re- 
 sults. A chemical analysis of tender grass will 
 not show it to contain more digestive nutrients 
 than the old tough grass that the cows will hardly 
 eat, but it requires much less energy to convert it 
 into milk. 
 
 One year I listed some squaw corn about the 
 tenth of July in a wheat stubble. By frost this 
 corn was beginning to come into roasting ears. 
 But most of the ears had not developed kernels. I 
 filled the silo from this field and got, as nearly as 
 I could ascertain, just as much milk from my herd 
 by feeding that silage as by feeding silage made 
 from mature corn containing considerable grain. 
 The same amount of dry grains were fed in both 
 
28 Stock and Stalks 
 
 cases. According to analysis this result could not 
 possibly be obtained. 
 
 Experiments have been tried in which the whole 
 wheat plant, grain, straw and all, also the oat plant 
 and the corn plant were fed separately to young 
 heifers. The heifers fed the corn plant grew to 
 maturity and bore young normally. The heifers 
 fed wheat and oats did poorly, produced their 
 young prematurely, all but one of which died soon 
 after birth. This does not indicate that oat or 
 wheat feeds are not good for cattle, but in them- 
 selves they are not sufficient. I do not think this 
 deficiency can be shown in the chemical analysis 
 but some of the food elements are hard to get. I 
 think if this wheat and oat plant had been young 
 and tender as a growing grass instead of a ma- 
 ture grain the heifers would have done well. 
 Ground oats is one of the best dairy feeds I ever 
 tried. 
 
 Balanced Rations. I do not know just to what 
 extent a cow requires a balanced ration. Since 
 some feeds have values over others that the chemi- 
 cal analysis does not show, I think the balanced ra- 
 tion figures and tables have been overworked. 
 They are not entirely valueless, however. Some 
 
What to Feed 29 
 
 will be placed in this book. Everyone knows that a 
 cow should not be fed one kind of feed only. We 
 should give as great a variety of feeds as possible 
 and the cows likes and dislikes, together with the 
 results in the milk pail, give about all the informa- 
 tion concerning a balanced feed that the writer has 
 ever used. We do not need to worry about the 
 supply of protein here because we use so much al- 
 falfa, or about the carbohydrates when we are feed- 
 ing the product of the corn plant. 
 
 A variation from a balanced ration does not im- 
 mediately affect the cow and usually one change off- 
 sets another. Experienced feeders of record-mak- 
 ing cattle make use of the chemical analysis of 
 feeds in their intense effort to have the cow digest 
 a very large am.ount of food, yield a large amount 
 of milk, and still keep her bodily weight about nor- 
 mal. But for farm conditions we should know that 
 too great an amount of alfalfa, bran, and like feeds 
 usually results in sleek, fat cattle and that cows 
 fed principally corn and carbohydrates, if they are 
 milking well, will look rather rough and get too 
 thin. The writer at one time had alfalfa in such 
 abundance that he let the milk herd run out in the 
 field and eat all they wanted from the stack. They 
 
30 Stock and Stalks 
 
 had silage and other feeds about as usual, but they 
 did not eat as much silage as they should have. The 
 result was that the herd looked fine and thrifty but 
 produced less milk. 
 
 Many people think that a cow is either lean or 
 fat and if she fills out in her body she is always 
 taking on fat, but the amount of lean meat on the 
 body also varies. Protein feeds are muscle build- 
 ers. They make animals grow. Carbohydrates sup- 
 ply fat and energy which is a separate thing from 
 muscle. Many times if cows become overweight 
 we reduce the total amount of feed consumed and 
 get a large yield in the milk pail. "The eye of the 
 feeder fattens his cattle." It also fills the milk 
 pail. Scientific knowledge can help a good feeder 
 but I doubt very much if it alone can make one. 
 Rules and system can not be made to take the place 
 of interest and attention. 
 
 For those w^ho care to go thoroughly into the 
 subject of feeding I recommend "How to Feed the 
 Dairy Cow," by Hugh Van Pelt, Editor of Kim- 
 ball's Dairy Farmer, Waterloo, Iowa. 
 
 I have referred those who wish to go deeply into 
 the subject of feeds to more eminent authorities 
 because I have never raced cows in a record contest 
 
What to Feed 31 
 
 and am not an authority on the subject. The rea- 
 son I have for writing is that I have viewed the 
 subject from the standpoint of profit making rather 
 than that of high production. Feeding for profit 
 has been too Httle considered. 
 
 Pastures. The way that pastures are generally 
 used is, in my opinion, the greatest mistake in the 
 milk business. Certainly we can make two blades 
 of grass grow where one blade of grass and one 
 weed grew before. Most of the pastures that we 
 see are either bare like a desert or weedy enough to 
 hide a calf three months old. A cow can not get 
 enough feed in the average pasture, no matter how 
 many acres she mows over. There is no need to 
 estimate how many acres of poor pasture a cow re- 
 quires, but one acre of well-cared for pasture per 
 cow is all the writer has ever had to use. While I 
 have fed a small amount of alfalfa in the summer, I 
 think it is safe to say that our cows had more grass 
 per head than almost any cows in the county. 
 Next year I expect to pasture fifty cows on thirty 
 acres, feeding what is necessary in addition. I ex- 
 pect to get nearly enough grass in a reasonably 
 good year for that number of cows. 
 
 The secret of the system lies in the fact that I 
 
32 Stock and Stalks 
 
 have the pasture divided into four parts and pas- 
 ture one part at a time, then use a mowing ma- 
 chine to dip off all weeds or remaining grass close 
 to the ground. Before turning the cattle into one 
 of these pastures, I wait until the grass has had 
 about four weeks to grow. If the grass gives out, 
 the cow is given enough feed to make up the dif- 
 ference. I do not let the grass stay short, for if 
 it stays short, the roots will also be short and in 
 that condition it can not withstand drought. Any 
 kind of grass will yield two or three times as much 
 feed per acre, if allowed to grow a month at a 
 time as it will if pastured off short all of the time. 
 I let the cattle eat the grass off the pasture about 
 as often as alfalfa is cut. Everyone knows that if 
 they would cut their alfalfa every three days they 
 would have hardly a hat full of hay at the end of 
 the season. I aim to mow the pasture about the 
 time that the cattle are taken out, for I do not 
 want any old, tough grass for the next time that 
 the cattle are turned into it. 
 
 Much of our pasture is a mixture of blue grass, 
 timothy and sweet clover with the sweet clover pre- 
 dominating. I do not want to place too much re- 
 liance on shallow rooting grasses, such as white 
 
What to Feed 33 
 
 clover and blue grass, although I have some pas- 
 ture of that kind. I like to have about five acres 
 of sorghum or Sudan grass to pasture once about 
 the first of August and then again about the sec- 
 ond week in September. 
 
 Sweet clover will root about four feet deep. Al- 
 falfa will root much deeper but is not practical as 
 a pasture. Blue grass and white clover, especially 
 where cropped off short, root very shallow. Sudan 
 grass will draw moisture three or four feet deep. 
 Sudan grass is like sorghum and may at some time 
 turn poison late in the fall, as far as I know, but 
 I know people who use it regularly for pasture and 
 have never had any such trouble. I have never 
 pastured Sudan grass but have used sorghum, and 
 have had no bad results. To get the most out of 
 pasture we must have all the surface available for 
 use and we must give the plant an opportunity to 
 breathe in order that it may root as deep as pos- 
 sible, and then we should use deep rooting grasses 
 such as sweet clover and Sudan grass or sorghum. 
 
 In getting at the value of pastures be sure to re- 
 member that the cow goes out to harvest the crop. 
 I do not think that pasture is an expensive feed. 
 
34 Stock and Stalks 
 
 It is probably the cheapest feed we can get all 
 things considered, when properly managed. 
 
 Hay. Four tons of alfalfa hay contain more nu- 
 trients than ten tons of silage, and hay is cheaper 
 to raise and cheaper to harvest. The intensive 
 dairy farmer makes alfalfa hay form as large a 
 part of his ration as practical, for a certain variety 
 is needed. However, figuring alfalfa as against corn 
 fodder, the fodder is the cheaper under average 
 conditions. The by-product farmer will do well to 
 use as little alfalfa as he can and still get good 
 results. 
 
 The principal value in alfalfa hay for cattle feed- 
 ing is in the leaves and the results obtained are so 
 dependent upon the kind of hay we get that we 
 consider that part of the secret of feeding lies in 
 putting up the hay. It has been demonstrated by 
 Headdon of the Colorado Experiment Station that 
 where alfalfa is put up by the most careful method, 
 three hundred and fifty pounds of leaves are lost 
 for every ton of hay put up. Where alfalfa is care- 
 lessly handled and most of the leaves fall off, we 
 lose as much as three thousand pounds of leaves 
 for every ton of hay put up, and the hay that re- 
 mains is of very little value so far as milk cows 
 
What to Feed 35 
 
 are concerned. Not only do we lose the leaves of 
 alfalfa but we can lose the food value out of the 
 leaf very easily. The alfalfa leaf is very easily di- 
 gested and the nutrients so easily digested are 
 leached out by rain. They even leave the plant 
 when it is bleached in the sun. The stem of the 
 alfalfa has some value, however, if it is cut young 
 enough to be tender. Old, woody stems will show 
 well in a chemical test but will show poorly in a 
 profit test on a dairy farm. 
 
 We can judge the feeding value of alfalfa by its 
 color. Well-cured hay should be pea-green, without 
 must and not dusty. We get more alfalfa by rak- 
 ing it soon after it is mowed, and by curing it in 
 windrows or in shocks, than if we let it remain 
 spread out to bleach in the sun. Besides curing 
 hay in the shock, I have seen another method used 
 and good results obtained where the barn was very 
 large in proportion to the amount of hay put in it. 
 Hay was hauled in from the field very green and 
 dumped by slings along the center of the barn 
 without being tramped. After several days it is 
 spread. The heated hay, when lifted up in the air 
 and piled up loose, cools off rapidly, the heat help- 
 
36 Stock and Stalks 
 
 ing greatly to dry off the moisture. Such hay will 
 not heat again and it retains its color. 
 
 I do not think there is any other grass so valu- 
 able for hay as is alfalfa. Before we had alfalfa 
 we used cane and millet. Sweet clover is favored 
 by some. It is about the same as alfalfa chemical- 
 ly, and I do not doubt that it makes a good hay if 
 not allowed to get woody. I have never used sweet 
 clover as hay. Sudan grass is a sorghum and has 
 come into some favor. It has about the same food 
 value, however, as the corn stalk which the farmer 
 already has available. 
 
 Corn Fodder. There are thousands of acres of 
 corn stalks being pastured in Nebraska and Iowa 
 that have not much more value as they stand in 
 the field than the dead grass by the roadside. 
 Saved and utilized they are the great source of 
 wealth that as yet is almost untouched. Their 
 yield is like a low-grade ore found in abundance. 
 Dry fodder containing no grain is worth at least 
 half as much per ton as alfalfa and the yield is ap- 
 proximately two tons per acre. I say it is worth 
 half as much but I have to guess at it. It con- 
 tains just as many pounds of digestible nutrients 
 per ton as alfalfa and more than prairie hay. How 
 
What to Feed 37 
 
 much it is worth depends largely upon the condi- 
 tions under which it is fed. It costs no more to 
 cut and shock fodder than to husk a field of corn. 
 Cutting up the fodder and husking out the ears by 
 machine is not an expensive operation. Remember 
 that hay must be brought in from the field. The 
 entire cost of cut fodder for feeding can fairly be 
 figured as about the cost of operating the machine 
 that does the cutting and husking. It is the cheap- 
 est feed that we can get. 
 
 Many years ago there were several large corn 
 shredding machines sold throughout this territory. 
 They husked the corn and shredded the fodder but 
 they did not prove a success because fodder, unless 
 unusually dry, gets musty if cut up fine with an 
 ensilage cutter and piled up. The new and really 
 successful way of handling fodder is with a small 
 machine that runs with a small gasoline engine. A 
 supply of fodder should be cut up every ten days 
 or two weeks until a time comes when the fodder 
 is real dry — not earlier than December. Then the 
 job may be finished and the feed will last in- 
 definitely. 
 
 Silage Without Corn. Some feeders put this cut- 
 up fodder in a silo as soon as the corn is dry 
 
38 Stock and Stalks 
 
 enough to keep in the crib. They run water in 
 with it and all reports seem to agree that it makes 
 a good silage. I have not tried this, but I hope the 
 scheme has in it the final solution of the problem. 
 Silo agents have been in the habit of arguing 
 that you can afford to feed silage, corn and all, to 
 all of the stock on the place and let the corn stalks 
 that are not put into the silo go to waste. I do 
 not agree with them. Instead of putting fifteen 
 acres of com in the silo where much of it is to be 
 fed to young stock and horses, use twenty or even 
 twenty-five acres of stalks alone and you will get 
 just about as good results. But think of the sav- 
 ing. The corn stalks are a by-product. You had 
 to farm so many acres to get them. A part of 
 your business is raising corn and the stalks are 
 paid for by the grain. 
 
 Suppose then you feed grain grown on five acres 
 of land. You are using just one-third of the acres 
 to feed your cattle that would be used if you had 
 put in fifteen acres of corn and fed it, corn and all. 
 This shows the advantages of the by-product pro- 
 ducer. It fills in the big gap that has been forgot- 
 ten. It is figuring on a cost basis rather than that 
 of yield or speed in production. 
 
What to Feed 39 
 
 Last winter a feeding experiment was tried at 
 the Wisconsin Experiment Station in which corn 
 silage with grain in was tested against silage from 
 which the corn had been picked. The result 
 showed that the cows ate slightly more silage when 
 it contained the grain and yielded on an average 
 three pounds more milk. The cost of the milk pro- 
 duced with and without the grain in the silage was 
 exactly the same. Silage was figured at $6.50 per 
 ton, corn and all, and without grain at $4.00. Since 
 the average farmer has cornstalks to waste and 
 only has to figure the cost of saving them, they 
 should not be figured at nearly two thirds of the 
 corn crop, even after they have been made into 
 silage. 
 
 However, it usually pays to feed grain to cows 
 that are milking. The main saving in the use of 
 husked fodder lies in getting cheaper feed for 
 growing young stock and feeding dry cows. 
 
 I recommend a system of feeding silage, corn and 
 all, to producing cows only. If you do not have 
 cows enough to prepare to feed them separately, it 
 will pay better to use no silos that have grain in 
 them at all. Feed the grain to those cows only 
 that are giving milk and will pay for it, or the cat- 
 
40 Stock and Stalks 
 
 tie that you are fattening. Hold the rest of the 
 grain for high prices. It will pay better. 
 
 Silage. The important thing about a silo is to 
 make it tall enough and small enough around. The 
 following dimensions are approximately correct: 
 For 12 to 15 cows, silo should be 10 feet in diameter 
 For 2 to 30 cows, silo should be 12 feet in diameter 
 For 30 to 40 cows, silo should be 14 feet in diameter 
 For 40 to 60 cows, silo should be 16 feet in diameter 
 
 Silage will spoil on top unless at least two inches 
 are fed off each day. It usually pays to have sev- 
 eral small silos rather than one big one because 
 during the summer months you may want to feed 
 only a part of a ration. The figures given are for 
 full rations. Have the silo air tight. Cut the corn 
 fine and put lots of effort on tamping it. The 
 ''Flink's Perfect Silo Seal" is a canvas that is treated 
 with some kind of tar preparation. It spreads out 
 over the top of the silo and is filled more than a 
 foot deep with water. This weighs down the silage 
 and makes a good air tight cover. Very little sil- 
 age decays under it. With such a cover you can 
 feed periodically and still lose hardly a day's feed- 
 ing of silage. 
 
 Grain Feed. Grain should be fed mixed with 
 other feeds. I have often been told how foolish 
 
What to Feed 41 
 
 was the old idea of the cow losing her cud. But 
 a cow can hardly re-gurgitate and re-chew grain by 
 itself, and all food eaten by a cow should be re- 
 chewed. If food passes into the intestines with- 
 out being chewed a second time, it is likely to sour 
 and cause scouring and loss of appetite or even 
 death, when a large amount of grain has been con- 
 sumed. We usually feed grains with silage or fine- 
 cut alfalfa. Alfalfa run through an ensilage cut- 
 ter without any re-cutting attachment, is said to 
 make cows' mouths sore, but I would much prefer 
 to feed it that way and risk sore mouths than to 
 risk the grain by itself. Some farmers feed corn 
 and cob-meal. The cob is of no value except to 
 lighten the ration, but if there is nothing else to di- 
 lute the grain with, by all means use the cob. 
 Oats, corn, hominy feed, which is a by-product in 
 the manufacturing of corn meal, bran, which is not 
 very valuable where plenty of alfalfa is fed, and 
 oil meal form our principal feeds for dairy cows. 
 Some get very good results by feeding ground 
 speltz and barley, others by feeding ground rye. 
 Corn, oats, wheat feeds and oil meal will generally 
 form the main part of our ration. The average 
 farmer is hardly warranted in looking farther for 
 
42 Stock and Stalks 
 
 grains to feed. Oil meal helps as a conditioner and 
 is fed in small amounts only. Cottonseed meal 
 may be of value but has never proven so in the 
 writer's personal experience. 
 
 Grain should be ground so that all of the nutri- 
 ments may be absorbed. The amount of grain to 
 be fed varies with the amount of milk that the cow 
 is producing. One pound of grain to every five 
 pounds of milk is a fairly good rule to follow. If 
 more grain is fed there should be another reason 
 for it, and that is that the cow readily responds to 
 more feeding and makes sufficient profit to pay for 
 the extra grain. The old rule, in the main, is true 
 that it takes a certain amount to maintain bodily 
 weight of the animal, and that the more feed 
 above the maintenance ration that she can con- 
 sume and turn into milk, the more the profit. But 
 even that rule should not be taken too literally. If 
 the extra feed is all grain, it may be too expensive. 
 
 Prepared Feeds. There are many kinds of pre- 
 pared feeds on the market and I have no right 
 either to knock or to boost them, because I know 
 practically nothing about them. Where there are 
 combination feeds, intended to make a balanced ra- 
 tion, I think the farmer would very likely be pay- 
 
What to Feed 43 
 
 ing a good deal for the combining. Where a mill 
 man buys grain from farmers and from those 
 grains prepares feeds that are not by-products of 
 other milling operations, I think the price would be 
 high. I have known farmers to sell alfalfa hay 
 and buy alfalfa meal, but I do not think it pays 
 to do those things. * All I would say concerning 
 prepared feeds would be to experiment carefully 
 and to buy them, not on their guaranteed chemical 
 analysis, but on what results they actually show in 
 the milk pail. Some prepared feeds contain oat 
 hulls which are about like wheat straw to digest. 
 Dried sugar beet pulp is a by-product feed contain- 
 ing mostly carbohydrates, and seems to have some 
 benefit as an appetizer. Cattle like it for a change. 
 Where it is not too high and carbohydrate rough 
 feeds are to be purchased, it might be profitable to 
 try it. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 HOW TO FEED 
 
 Balanced Ration. Cattle like variety in their 
 feed. Not all cattle have the same tastes and de- 
 sires. When one cow refuses to eat her grain, it is 
 well to try her on some other mixture. A good 
 feeder usually has several grain feeds on hand at a 
 time and is continually changing and trying out 
 rations. By checking his results at the pail, he 
 acquires knowledge that is more practical than any 
 chemist can impart. We know that a cow's food 
 must contain the necessary elements needed for her 
 bodily maintenance and the production of milk. 
 We must supply the substances needed. Rules for 
 figuring values of feeds and examples of balanced 
 rations are given below, but we also let the cow in 
 on the discussion. We should not follow rules so 
 closely that we ignore her likes and dislikes or 
 overlook the results that she puts in the milk pail 
 and the pocket book. There is probably no living 
 creature that has for its natural diet a balanced 
 
How to Feed 45 
 
 ration, unless it be a carnivorous animal that eats 
 its prey whole — feathers and all. 
 
 A poorly balanced diet may be fed for several 
 months before any results begin to show. Cattle 
 do fairly well on the corn plant (mainly carbo- 
 hydrates), and they also do well on pure alfalfa (a 
 protein feed). They do better on a combination of 
 the two, but the combination does not have to be in 
 just the right proportion. In deciding what to 
 feed a cow the good feeder uses his eyes more than 
 his pencil. If the muscle and body of the animal 
 needs building up, he uses protein feeds in large 
 proportions. Cattle inclined to be too sleek and fat 
 often milk better if fed more carbohydrates in pro- 
 portion. But we should never pass up one or the 
 other completely. Notice that I speak of only two 
 substances in food — protein and carbohydrates. 
 There are others, but we need not be concerned 
 about them. All we want to know from the 
 chemist is approximately the amount of these two 
 elements the feed contains. Fat is considered the 
 same as a carbohydrate but has more than two 
 times the value of carbohydrates. 
 
 Dairy cows should be kept sleek and thrifty, but 
 lean while they are producing milk. The dry cow 
 
46 Stock and Stalks 
 
 should be allowed to get as fat as possible, for the 
 fatter and more thrifty she is the more milk she 
 will give, after freshening. To maintain the cow in 
 the right condition, we consider both the kind and 
 the amount of feed. Many times we decrease the 
 grain ration to keep a cow from getting fat and go- 
 ing dry too soon. Too much grain fed is a great 
 waste. The right amount to be fed can not be fig- 
 ured so much by the size of the cow as by what she 
 does with it. The milk pail contains the answer to 
 most feeding problems. Increase the feed slightly 
 and if no more milk is produced, begin to decrease 
 and watch what hapepns. We have to do this for 
 each cow just as we have to adjust the carburetor 
 on a Ford. 
 
 Elsewhere in this book, I discuss pastures and 
 how to make the most of them. I get grass that 
 is tall enough for the cattle to eat to the best ad- 
 vantage and I keep it from getting old and tough by 
 using the system of divided pastures described 
 there. But in doing this, the grass must be pas- 
 tured off fairly close before turning the cattle into 
 the next pasture. If care is not taken, the cattle 
 are having alternately a feast and a famine by the 
 change. To offset this, I usually feed as much 
 
How to Feed 47 
 
 good alfalfa as the cows will eat all of the' time. It 
 does not require much hay but it makes up for the 
 variation in pasture. Even when on fine pasture, 
 cows like a little hay and should have it. I usually 
 pasture cows at night as well as during the day. 
 By all means feed cows at night if they are re- 
 quired to stay in the lot. 
 
 Where the heaviest records are made in milk 
 production, they are nearly all made at prohibitive 
 costs so far as the value of the product is con- 
 cerned. This is because too large a proportion of 
 the feed consumed is high priced. We must take 
 into consideration the price of grain, the price of 
 rough feed, and the price of milk products, before 
 we can determine the proportion of grain and other 
 feed that should be given to the dairy cow. 
 
 We can make milk out of rough feed without any 
 grain under the proper conditions. When grain is 
 too much out of proportion in price, we can safely 
 do without it, if our rough feed happens to be good 
 pasture or good alfalfa hay and silage. If our 
 roughage is too poor, it rarely pays to compel good 
 dairy cows to live on it alone, for their future use- 
 fulness will be impaired by starvation. A drought 
 in summer with the resulting short pasture often 
 
48 Stock and Stalks 
 
 knocks down the milk flow for all of the next win- 
 ter and makes all that year's production more ex- 
 pensive. Starve a good cow and she soon becomes 
 a poor one, for she must adjust herself to the new 
 condition. The new condition she adopts is the 
 same as that of the scrub. The scrub is a product 
 of starvation. She has been bred to withstand 
 hardships instead of using all efforts to produce 
 milk. Never let a good cow go hungry for pasture 
 or hay. 
 
 Water. A milk cow requires about twelve and 
 one-half gallons of pure water per day. In sum- 
 mer it should be fresh and cool water. In winter 
 it should be fairly warm. The water should be as 
 accessible as possible at all times. Twice a day is 
 not often enough for milk cows. Especially when 
 cattle are on dry feed, the more water they can be 
 induced to consume, the more butter fat and milk 
 solids it will put into the pail. In the winter we 
 usually water cows three times a day in the barn 
 with water no colder than comes from the well, and 
 slightly salt their feed so that they will drink 
 water in abundance. I do not know just what ef- 
 fect stagnant, dirty water has on a milk cow, but 
 do not think I would want to drink the milk that 
 
How to Feed 49 
 
 is made up largely of such water. Also if cattle 
 wade in infected water and get their udders and 
 teats in it, the milk will to a certain extent be in- 
 fected as is the water. 
 
 Calf and Heifer Feeding. In raising calves by 
 hand there is more danger of overfeeding than of 
 underfeeding. There is also danger in feeding milk 
 that is too cold. In feeding an average young calf 
 we usually take about two quarts of the first milk 
 that is drawn from the cow, which is low in butter 
 fat, and feed the milk fresh and warm with the 
 animal heat in it. After three weeks, skim milk 
 may be substituted especially if it is warm and 
 fresh. If the milk is artificially warmed it should 
 be fed at a temperature of at least eighty degrees. 
 Do not dilute milk with water. Let the calf have 
 what water it wants separately. A calf should 
 have milk until at least three months old but at 
 the end of a week it will eat shelled corn and oats. 
 These grains should be fed liberally to calves that 
 do not have enough milk for a complete ration. 
 After a calf is one month old it may be raised on 
 milk made from dried buttermilk or condensed but- 
 termilk or on skim milk of any kind, provided it 
 is not fed too much at a time nor fed milk that is 
 
50 Stock and Stalks 
 
 too cold. No changes such as from sweet milk to 
 sour milk should be made suddenly. If feeding 
 condensed butteraiilk the milk after being diluted 
 should be tested for solids with a lactometer. Some 
 manufacturers of such products give directions for 
 reducing it with water to such an extent that it 
 would look like ordinary skim milk but have only 
 half its value. This may make it appear that the 
 feeder is getting a lot for his money, but he will 
 not long be fooled by directions of that kind if he 
 is watching the cost of his feed and the growth of 
 his calves and knows what results he should ex- 
 pect for his money. 
 
 People sometimes tell of stunted calves that 
 turned out to be good cows but I do not think that 
 a calf can be stunted a minute without being af- 
 fected. If a stunted calf makes a good cow, which 
 seldom ever happens, certain it is that if the calf 
 had been well nourished the cow would have been 
 even greater. Animals do not grow all of their 
 lives. They grow while they are young. Every 
 minute of that youth period that we lose for 
 growth is lost forever. Growth is the natural de- 
 velopment of bone, muscle, nervous system, circu- 
 lation, etc., that the animal needs for hard work 
 
How to Feed 51 
 
 when mature. Breeders of pure bred cattle, who 
 expect to make records with their young stock, feed 
 them grain every day. I do not think this is neces- 
 sary or practical for the farmer to do, but certain 
 it is, that no promising heifer should ever be al- 
 lowed to get thin. She should have good pasture 
 during all of the summer and should have plenty 
 of well-cured feed, com fodder or corn silage, and 
 a fair amount of alfalfa every day during the 
 winter. 
 
 Chemical Analysis. A chemical analysis of some 
 of the most commonly used feeds for dairy cows 
 follows : 
 
52 
 
 Stock and Stalks 
 
 Total Dry 
 Matter in 
 FEEDING STUFF 100 lbs. 
 
 Alfalfa Hay 91.4 
 
 Timothy Hay 88.4 
 
 Prairie Hay (Western) 93.5 
 Clover, Sweet, White.. 91.4 
 Sorghum Fodder, Dry.. 90.3 
 Corn Silage 26.3 
 
 Corn and Its Products 
 
 Corn, Dent 89.5 
 
 Gluten feed 91.3 
 
 Hominy 89.9 
 
 Wheat and Its Products 
 
 Wheat 89.8 
 
 Bran 89.9 
 
 Wheat Feed (Shorts 
 
 and Bran) 89.9 
 
 Rye and Its Products 
 
 Rye 90.6 
 
 Rye feed (Shorts and 
 
 Bran) 88.5 
 
 Oats and Its Products 
 
 Oats 90.8 
 
 Oat Hulls 93.2 
 
 Emmer (Spelt) 91.3 
 
 Linseed Meal 90.4 
 
 Cotton Seed Meal 92.5 
 
 Digestive Nutrients in 100 lbs. 
 
 Crude 
 
 Carbo- 
 
 
 
 Protein 
 
 hydrates 
 
 Fat 
 
 Total 
 
 10.6 
 
 39.0 
 
 0.9 
 
 51.6 
 
 3.0 
 
 42.8 
 
 1.2 
 
 48.5 
 
 4.0 
 
 41.4 
 
 1.1 
 
 47.9 
 
 10.9 
 
 38.2 
 
 0.7 
 
 50.7 
 
 2.8 
 
 44.8 
 
 2.0 
 
 52.1 
 
 1.1 
 
 15.0 
 
 0.7 
 
 17.7 
 
 7.5 
 
 67.8 
 
 4.6 
 
 85.7 
 
 21.6 
 
 51.9 
 
 3.2 
 
 80.7 
 
 7.0 
 
 61.2 
 
 7.3 
 
 84.6 
 
 9.2 
 
 67.5 
 
 1.5 
 
 80.1 
 
 12.5 
 
 41.6 
 
 3.0 
 
 60.9 
 
 12.9 
 
 45.1 
 
 4.0 
 
 67.0 
 
 9.9 
 
 68.4 
 
 1.2 
 
 81.0 
 
 12.2 
 
 55.8 
 
 2.9 
 
 74.5 
 
 9.7 
 
 52.1 
 
 3.8 
 
 70.4 
 
 2.0 
 
 45.2 
 
 1.3 
 
 50.1 
 
 9.5 
 
 63.2 
 
 1.7 
 
 76.5 
 
 31.7 
 
 37.9 
 
 2.8 
 
 75.9 
 
 37.0 
 
 21.8 
 
 8.6 
 
 78.2 
 
How to Feed 53 
 
 Carbo. 
 
 Fat 
 
 lbs. 
 
 lbs. 
 
 7.0 
 
 0.1 
 
 0.2 
 
 0.017 
 
 0.22 
 
 0.019 
 
 0.24 
 
 0.021 
 
 Rations for the Dairy Cow. Haecker's standard 
 for the feeding of dairy cows is as follows: 
 
 DAILY ALLOWANCE 
 
 Crude 
 
 Prot. 
 
 lbs. 
 
 For Maintenance of 1000 lb. cow 0.7 
 
 For each pound of 3% milk 0.047 
 
 For each pound of 8.5% milk 0.049 
 
 For each pound of 4% milk 0.054 
 
 To illustrate the table there follows the allowance 
 
 for a 1000 pound cow producing 25 pounds of 4% 
 
 milk daily: 
 
 Crude 
 
 Prot. Carbo. Fat 
 lbs. lbs. lbs. 
 
 For Maintenance 0.70 7.0 0.10 
 
 For 25 pounds of 4% milk 1.35 6.0 0.52 
 
 Total 2.05 13.0 0.62 
 
54 
 
 Stock and Stalks 
 
 Below are given some balanced rations common- 
 ly fed to dairy cows: 
 
 Total 
 Car- Diges- 
 Diges- bohy- tible 
 Dry tible drates Nutri- 
 
 Matter Protein and fats ents 
 
 lbs. lbs. lbs. lbs. lbs. 
 
 No. 1 
 
 Corn : 10 8.95 .75 7.24 8.57 
 
 Corn Stover 10 8.10 .21 4.31 4.61 
 
 Alfalfa Hay 12 10.97 1.27 4.78 6.19 
 
 No. 2 
 
 Corn Silage 40 10.52 .44 6.28 7.08 
 
 Alfalfa Hay 10 9.14 1.06 3.99 5.16 
 
 Wheat Bran 2 1.79 .25 .89 1.21 
 
 Corn Meal 6 5.32 .41 4.35 5.08 
 
 No. 3 
 
 Corn Silage 35 9.20 .38 5.49 6.19 
 
 Alfalfa Hay 10 9.14 1.06 3.99 5.16 
 
 Ground Corn 5 4.43 .34 3.62 4.19 
 
 Wheat Bran 5 4.49 .62 2.23 3.04 
 
 Linseed Meal I1/2 1.35 .47 .61 1.13 
 
 At the Nebraska State Fair in 1920 there was in 
 the Dairy building a large Holstein cow designated 
 as the champion cow of Nebraska for 1919. She 
 is owned by Chris Stryker of Red Cloud. I copied 
 from the records the amount of feed she consumed 
 
How to Feed 55 
 
 in a year and the amount of her production. They 
 are as follows: 
 
 Feed Returns 
 
 lbs. lbs. lbs. 
 
 Corn 1790 Beets 9645 Milk 26,721.5 
 
 Oil Meal 1352 Dried beet Butter 1,066 
 
 Barley 463 pulp 1254 
 
 Bran 2312 Hay 4068 
 
 Oats 498 Silage 4680 
 
 Total 6452 Total 19,647 
 
 It will be noticed that she consumed a little less 
 than 18 pounds of grain per day on an average 
 throughout the year, that the grain consisted of 
 five varieties, and that the rough feed was of a 
 high order, which makes it more expensive than 
 most of us can afford to use as a regular feed. 
 Beets are chemically about equal to corn silage, 
 but in actual results in feeding they are consider- 
 ably superior. I have not fed dried beet pulp, but 
 I have fed it fresh and it is a very good milk pro- 
 ducer. Cows milk down thin on it. If we would 
 increase the figures on the dried beet pulp to what 
 it would be if the pulp were fed fresh, it would 
 bring the beet ration up to at least three times the 
 amount of the silage ration. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 VARIATION IN MILK TESTS 
 
 G. W. Shaw in Hoard's Dairyman of March 10, 
 1916 says: 
 
 "It is a well-known fact that the percentage of 
 butter fat in the milk of cows increases very ma- 
 terially toward the end of a period of lactation. 
 There are also other slight changes in that period. 
 During the first month the fat generally averages 
 higher than during the second month. Under nor- 
 mal conditions of feed, etc., the fact increases from 
 the third or fourth month to the end of lactation. 
 
 ''Although it is a fact that cows cannot be fed 
 to give beyond a certain percentage of butterfat, 
 yet it has been proven many times that if poorly 
 fed for a considerable length of time, the average 
 test will decrease. This is especially true if cows 
 become thin and poor in flesh. Many times this 
 will account for a farmer's average herd test drop- 
 ping from one period to the next. It is also notice- 
 able that the quantity of water taken, whether as 
 water or succulent feed, affects the herd. This is 
 
Variation in Milk Tests 57 
 
 particularly noticeable when cows are changed from 
 a diet of dry hay to green feed or vice versa. 
 
 *'It has been noted that the change of weather 
 affects the test. A sudden cold period coming will 
 usually decrease the quantity of milk, but increase 
 the percentage of fat. If the cold period con- 
 tinues, this change will tend to right itself. It 
 would seem that there is a connection between the 
 question of heat and cold and the amount of water 
 taken. 
 
 '*It is a v/ell-known fact that the first milk drawn 
 from a cow's udder is very low in butterfat, not 
 over 1%, whereas the last drawn is quite high, 
 sometimes reaching 10%. The importance of ex- 
 haustive milking is evident. By carefully milking 
 to the fullest extent each time, the test will un- 
 doubtedly be higher than if milking were not ex- 
 haustive. This, continued over a period of time, 
 would have its effect on the 15-day test. 
 
 ''Another very important point we wish to make 
 is this, unless a man who does his testing at home 
 understands how to do it thoroughly and is very 
 careful in taking his sample, he will not check with 
 the factory test. There are several reasons for dif- 
 ferences between tests made on samples taken at 
 
58 Stock and Stalks 
 
 the farm and those made on samples taken at the 
 factory. 
 
 "Many farmers have a habit of taking a httie 
 cream or top milk for family use, and think that 
 it will not materially affect the average test. As a 
 matter of fact it will affect materially. For in- 
 stance, if a farmer were producing 100 pounds of 
 milk testing 3.5% and he used one quart of top 
 milk, testing 10%, his average test would be re- 
 duced .2 of 1% ; that is, instead of delivering milk 
 testing 3.5% it would actually test 3.3%. 
 
 ''Some farmers adopt another method; they use, 
 for family purposes the milk from a cow which 
 gives the richest milk, so that the result is always 
 the same, the average test being lower. 
 
 ''Another cause of difference in tests, and we 
 think this is a very important one, is found in the 
 condition of the milk when received at the factory. 
 Some farmer's milk, when brought in, is smooth 
 and homogeneous; some bring in milk which is 
 slightly churned; that is, there are small particles 
 of butter, which is separated butterfat floating on 
 the surface. This latter milk is very hard to sam- 
 ple; the sampler is plunged into the milk and is 
 likely to miss a due proportion of these floating 
 
Variation in Milk Tests 59 
 
 particles. In addition, some of the separated but- 
 terfat is sure to be left behind, both on the sides 
 of can and on the cover. Butterfat adheres to any 
 surface much more rapidly than any other of the 
 milk solids. It is quite evident that milk which is 
 partially churned will get a lower test at the fac- 
 tory than it did at the farm before it became 
 churned. 
 
 "In order to prevent this churning, it is most im- 
 portant that the milk be quickly and thoroughly 
 cooled after milking. If milk is poured into cans 
 and stirred and handled in a half warm condition, 
 it is sure to separate to some extent. While the 
 particles of butterfat are not large enough to be 
 particularly noticeable, they are there and adhere 
 to the surfaces as described. 
 
 "Another condition which causes trouble in 
 sampling, is found where some of the cream is firm 
 and floats around in hard lumps but is not churned. 
 This kind of cream is also hard to sample and these 
 lumps are liable to be left behind on the sides of 
 the can and cover. We believe this condition is 
 caused by allowing milk to cool spontaneously. 
 That is, instead of cooling quickly, the farmer fills 
 up his milk can and lets it stand to cool slowly. 
 
60 Stock and Stalks 
 
 This is liable to give a hard cream on the surface 
 which does not break up readily. The farmer, 
 therefore, will get a better test by cooling his milk 
 quickly and thoroughly and refraining from using 
 the top milk for family use. 
 
 **We have come to this conclusion, namely, that 
 certain conditions affect cows and their work, the 
 same as that of human beings. As someone has 
 said: Tut yourself in a cow's place and try to get 
 her point of view. Could you do good work if a 
 swarm of flies were bothering you all the time? 
 What effect does an extremely warm day or two 
 have on your capacity for work? If you were out 
 in a cold, rain, and wind storm, how would it affect 
 your work? Suppose you were thirsty and had to 
 wait two or three hours before you could get a 
 drink and then got foul and stagnant water? Or, 
 suppose that someone stronger than yourself would 
 chase you away from the shade or sheltered spot or 
 forced you to move when you were resting or eat- 
 ing? Suppose you were forced to eat food that you 
 did not like or enjoy? How long would it be be- 
 fore these things would show in your work? Any 
 or all of them would impair your efficiency and 
 lessen your ability.' " 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 SUGGESTIONS FOR CONSTRUCTING A BARN. 
 
 Since there is so much information available 
 concerning construction of barns, it is not neces- 
 sary for me to discuss it here except to criticize 
 the standard forms. On most farms at hay-mak- 
 ing time there is no time to haul hay to the dairy 
 barn so it is stacked in the field and hauled in dur- 
 ing the winter. Many large dairy barn hay mows 
 are constructed at a great deal of expense and stand 
 empty most of the time in this climate. Before build- 
 ing large, expensive barns it might be well to con- 
 sult those who have built to see how they are get- 
 ting along. On an average farm I would suggest 
 a one story shed for the cows built as a lean-to or 
 butting up against a hay shed. This hay shed need 
 not be very large. 
 
 In most expensive barns there is installed a lit- 
 ter-carrier that runs on a track. If I were going 
 to use a litter-carrier at all I would have the thing 
 so that it could be let do^\Tl below the level of the 
 gutter and shove the manure down the gutter into 
 
62 Stock and Stalks 
 
 it. This means would save all the liquid manure 
 which is more valuable and would save the effort 
 required to hft the manure with a shovel. When 
 full the carrier could be hoisted, run on the track, 
 and dumped into the wagon or wherever desired. 
 But why use a carrier? Why not have the gutters 
 run through the side of the barn and a wagon or 
 manure spreader standing beneath? It is veiy 
 easy to push the manure from ten cows down the 
 gutter. Two gutters could run into one wagon 
 which would be left standing outside of the barn 
 on lower ground. The barn could either stand on a 
 side hill or a place could be dug to run the wagon 
 into. If hogs are to work over the manure, a con- 
 crete basin should be constructed to hold it. 
 
 The feed trough should be so made that it may 
 be used to water the cows during cold weather. 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 MILKING 
 
 The cow's milk is partly manufactured in the 
 udder at the time it is being drawn. The process 
 is like digestion and is interfered with by any 
 nervous tension or shock. The prick of a pin that 
 will make a cow jump at the time of milking has 
 been known to greatly reduce the butterfat of 
 the milk given and at the same time to reduce the 
 supply. Shepherd dogs that go after cows are 
 likely to perform their labor at a very high cost 
 in milk. A milk stool used as a weapon knocks 
 a lot of money out of the farmer's pocket. A 
 rough milker who irritates a cow causes much 
 trouble also. If I were to judge a dairyman by 
 just one thing I could tell most about him by 
 noticing how well the cows liked to have him milk 
 them. Where a cow has to dance to the jerking 
 of rough hands and listen to profanity of the 
 milker, that is plenty of information to decide that 
 on that farm dairying does not pay. Thei'e are 
 
64 Stock and Stalks 
 
 few cows that will treat a milker any better than 
 he treats them. 
 
 For sanitary reasons I do not believe in milking 
 with wet hands, but if a cow's udder is caked, the 
 best cure that I know is to draw the milk into the 
 hands very slowly and rub it into the caked udder 
 until it is absorbed through the skin. I do not 
 know or care why, but there is something about a 
 cow's milk that is good for her caked udder when 
 applied to the outside. One treatment of an hour's 
 duration, milking the milk a stream at a time and 
 working it into the caked udder, is often sufficient 
 to cure even bad cases. Oow's teats should never 
 be allowed to get sore, for clean milk can not be 
 produced from sore, bleeding teats. It may be 
 necessary to apply antiseptic medicines when they 
 are sore, but a good way to keep the teats soft and 
 pliable so the cow will not be irritated by milking 
 is to take the last streams or two in the udder, 
 milk it into the hand and use it to rub into the 
 teat. The solids in the last streams of milk are 
 about one-half butterfat and this greases the teat 
 with the best kind of grease that I know. 
 
 Having employed a great many men on the farm 
 I have found from experience that two out of three 
 
Milking 65 
 
 do not know how to milk. Of these, some can be 
 taught but many are not worth bothering with. 
 Many are too rough and many do not seem to be 
 able to get all the milk from the udder. To get all 
 the milk from one quarter of the udder the milker 
 should use both hands, using one hand above the 
 teat to squeeze the milk into the teat and with the 
 other hand milk it into the pail. 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 MILK PRODUCTS 
 
 Every milk producer should make some study of 
 the principal products that are made from milk, 
 for such information may help to market it to a 
 better advantage. 
 
 Butter. The law requires that butter contain 
 80% butter-fat and that it shall contain less than 
 16% moisture. In 100 pounds of creamery butter 
 there is usually about 3 pounds of salt, 1 pound of 
 casein and between 15 and 16 pounds of water. 
 
 Figuring that butter contains 80% fat for the 
 minimum which allows for the maximum amount 
 of water, the following amount may be obtained 
 from 100 pounds of milk : 
 
 100 lbs. of 3% milk will produce 3% lbs. of butter. 
 100 lbs. of 4% milk will produce 5 lbs. of butter. 
 100 lbs. of 5% milk will produce 6^4 lbs. of butter. 
 
 Cheese. It usually takes about 10 pounds of 4% 
 milk to make 1 pound of cheddar cheese, which is 
 the common cheese usually sold at the stores. This 
 
Milk Products 67 
 
 cheese will test out about 36.8% fat, 25.5% pro- 
 tein, 6% sugar, ash, etc., and 31.7% water. 
 
 Cottage Cheese. Cottage cheese is usually made 
 from skim milk. 100 pounds of average skim milk 
 will make from 12 to 15 pounds of cottage cheese, 
 such as is usually sold on the city market. Where 
 it is creamed the cream is put in after the cheese 
 is made. 
 
 Cream. 100 pounds of 4% milk will produce : 20 
 pounds of 20% cream and 80 pounds of skim re- 
 maining, 131/3 pounds of 30% cream and 86% lbs. 
 of skim remaining, or 10 pounds of 40% cream and 
 90 pounds of skim remaining. 
 
 The average cream sold tests about 30% butter- 
 fat, so on the average the farmer has left about 
 86 pounds or a ten-gallon can of skim milk for 
 every 100 pounds of 4% milk. 
 
 Skim Milk. The value of skim milk on the farm 
 as feed is an important one for the farmer. The 
 price of whole milk in the city is not always high 
 enough so that it pays the farmer to sell his skim 
 rather than to use it for feeding. During the flush 
 season in the spring when milk dealers are all 
 burdened with a surplus of milk, it would be a 
 great advantage if more farmers would separate 
 
68 Stock and Stalks 
 
 and feed the skim milk to hogs. I will endeavor 
 to give here as accurately as possible what real 
 information I can gather from Experiment Station 
 reports concerning the feeding value of skim milk. 
 At the outset it might be well to state that on 
 this question I have never known any two agricul- 
 tural experts to agree and experiments need to be 
 carefully analyzed before they yield true informa- 
 tion. 
 
 I can prove to you from experiments published 
 in Henry & Morrison's "Feeds and Feeding'' that 
 skim milk is worth only $.08 a hundred pounds 
 when com meal is worth $1.00 a hundred, and I 
 can prove that skim milk is worth $.31 a hundred 
 pounds when corn meal is worth $1.00 a hundred. 
 In fact when an experimenter undertakes to prove 
 a thing he has very easy sailing if he can line up 
 conditions to suit the proposition he intends to 
 prove. The trouble with most experiments on this 
 subject has been that they are apparently planned 
 to be used as arguments for the purpose of in- 
 creasing the feeding of skim milk and they do not 
 undertake to solve the real question involved. 
 
 Every one knows that corn alone is too unbal- 
 anced a ration to feed to hogs profitably. Where 
 
Milk Products 69 
 
 it is endeavored to show that skim milk has a very 
 high value, one bunch of hogs is fed corn alone, 
 and to compare with it another bunch is fed corn 
 and a small amount of skim milk. Let those who 
 are satisfied with the information that can be ob- 
 tained by such an experiment use it and I will have 
 no dispute with them. But for most of us the 
 question is whether we should feed alfalfa to the 
 cow and the cow's milk to the pig or let the pig eat 
 his own alfalfa. A hog's ration may be balanced 
 with alfalfa hay or with alfalfa or rape pasture. 
 The question is whether milk and corn makes as 
 cheap a gain as alfalfa and corn. It is very difficult 
 to find experiments that answer this question and 
 it is the most practical one in the world. If it is 
 good sense to use the cost of producing pork on 
 dry corn alone as the basis of getting at the value 
 of milk, it is also good sense to use skim milk alone 
 as the basis of figuring the value of grain. In an 
 experiment published by Henry & Morrison on 
 page 597, where little pigs weighing only twenty- 
 five pounds were used and which are capable of 
 making cheaper gains on milk than older hogs be- 
 cause they have smaller bodies to maintain, it took 
 2,739 pounds of skim milk to make one hundred 
 
70 Stock and Stalks 
 
 -■# 
 
 pounds of gain. But where 233 pounds of grain 
 were fed with 935 pounds of skim milk there was 
 also a gain of one hundred pounds. Figuring now 
 as they do who would set the value of milk by the 
 cost of feeding dry grain, we will use skim milk as 
 a basis of figuring. If skim milk is worth $.30 a 
 hundred, corn is worth $2.32 a hundred. This is the 
 same line of reasoning as is used when in an experi- 
 ment reported on page 598, if corn is worth $.01 a 
 pound we find that skim milk is worth $.30 a hun- 
 dred. All they prove is that a hog must have some- 
 thing besides corn or milk. Corn is the cheapest hog 
 feed but it is too unbalanced a diet to get the best 
 results when fed alone. A small amount of skim 
 milk or something else will balance the diet. Ac- 
 cording to reports published by Henry & Morrison 
 on page 598 it will be noticed that 585 pounds of 
 skim milk reduced the amount of grain required to 
 produce 100 lb. growth by 179 pounds. If corn is 
 worth $.01 a pound and we figure on that basis, 
 skim milk is worth $.31 a hundred pounds. But 
 notice what happens when the amount of skim milk 
 is increased beyond what is needed to supply the 
 elements which corn lacks. When the amount of 
 
Milk Products 71 
 
 skim milk is increased by 463 pounds more, the 
 amount of corn meal eaten was only reduced by 56 
 pounds, so that for the first 585 pounds the farmer 
 was getting $.31 but for the next 463 pounds he 
 was getting only $.12 a hundred pounds, and when 
 the skim milk was again increased by 849 pounds 
 the amount of corn meal required was only reduced 
 71 pounds and this figures down the last batch of 
 skim to only about $.08 per hundred pounds. 
 These experiments prove that we must keep some- 
 where near a balanced ration but do not prove any- 
 thing regarding a definite value of skim as a feed. 
 What your skim milk is worth on the farm de- 
 pends altogether on how much it is needed to bal- 
 ance the diet in hog feeding operations. It is of 
 much more value for little pigs than for larger 
 hogs that are more capable of digesting grasses. 
 Professor Henry says, 'Tigs fed skim milk and 
 grain gained nothing from pasture. Grazing stimu- 
 lates the appetites of pigs getting grain but no 
 milk and they eat more grain and make larger and 
 more economical gains." So we see that pigs will 
 pass up pasture for milk and that when milk is 
 fed to pigs on pasture it replaces the use of pas- 
 ture so that it does not do much good to pasture 
 
72 Stock and Stalks 
 
 hogs that are fed milk. Experiments reported on 
 page 614 show that pigs on alfalfa pasture require 
 344 pounds of grain to gain one hundred pounds 
 and that on rape pasture only 340 pounds are re- 
 quired. 
 
 Different experiments always vary slightly as to 
 the amount of grain required to make a certain 
 growth. But taking the most advantageous ration 
 that we can prepare with milk and corn as shown 
 by these experiments, we may conclude that some- 
 thing like 300 pounds of grain and 500 pounds of 
 milk will make one hundred pounds of growth on 
 one hundred pound hogs, and that about 350 
 pounds of grain fed to hogs on pasture will make 
 the same amount of growth. Let each farmer 
 figure out what pasture and grain cost him and 
 he can get approximately the real value of skim 
 milk. ^ For large hogs milk will be worth less than 
 here shown. For smaller hogs it will be worth 
 more. 
 
 It may be interesting to know the cost per pound 
 of skim milk solids figured at different prices, but 
 the chemical analysis we are not considering. One 
 hundred pounds of milk usually contains about 9.25 
 pounds of solids. If 100 pounds of skim milk is 
 
Milk Products 73 
 
 worth $.20, one pound of dry matter would be 
 worth $.0216 and a ton would be worth $43.20. At 
 $.40 a hundred, one pound of dry matter would be 
 worth $.0432 and a ton would be worth $86.40. At 
 $.50 a hundred, one pound of dry matter would cost 
 $.0540 and one ton cost $108.00. 
 
 Whey. The average composition of whey is 
 about as follows: water 93.12%, and total soHds 
 6.88%. Of the total solids there are about .27% 
 fat, .81% nitrogenous substances and 5.80% sugar, 
 ash, etc. For pigs whey has a feeding value about 
 half that of skim milk. 
 
CtHAPTER X. 
 MARKET MILK 
 
 Weight of Milk. The weight of milk varies 
 sHghtly with the temperature and also because of 
 the difference in the amount of solids it contains. 
 An average gallon of milk at 60 degrees weighs 
 8.6 pounds. A ten-gallon can filled to the lid should 
 weigh 86 pounds. 
 
 A can large enough to hold 100 pounds of water 
 would hold 103.2 pounds of average milk at 60 de- 
 grees, 103.6 pounds of skim milk, or 90 pounds of 
 pure butterfat. Cream weighs less than water. 
 The butterfat in milk is in the form of little par- 
 ticles or globules, which float around in the milk. 
 In Holstein milk they are small, in Jersey milk 
 they are larger. Cream is simply milk containing a 
 large number of particles of fat. 
 
 Legal Requirements. The law requires market 
 milk to test not less than 3% butterfat. Milk con- 
 taining 3% butterfat but less than 111/2% total 
 solids is usually considered watered milk. We de- 
 termine fat content by Babcock test and the solids- 
 
Market Milk 75 
 
 not-fat by an instrument called the lactometer, 
 which is simply an accurate means of determining 
 the weight of milk. 
 
 Milk from cows known to be diseased, or from 
 cows fifteen days before coming fresh can not 
 legally be sold. After freshening, milk can be sold 
 as soon as it attains a normal condition. It is il- 
 legal to sell milk to which water or any other sub- 
 stance has been added, or milk which has been ex- 
 posed to disease-producing bacteria, or milk that 
 has been stored, handled or transported in an un- 
 clean or unsanitary manner. 
 
 Cleanliness. The greatest handicap in the milk 
 business is the difficulty of getting milk that is as 
 clean as other food which people eat. It is not im- 
 possible to do, but it is rarely done. In most all 
 cities of the United States milk that meets the 
 highest requirements as to cleanliness and sanita- 
 tion is being sold for from 20 to 35 cents a quart. 
 Such milk is guaranteed to be pure by a medical 
 board and is labeled certified milk. There are vari- 
 ous requirements in producing certified milk that 
 need not all be explained here. But to the average 
 consumer the main difference is that the producer 
 of certified milk is as careful concerning cleanliness 
 
76 Stock and Stalks 
 
 in milking and caring for the milk as a clean, re- 
 spectable housekeeper is in making bread. In regu- 
 lar market milk we do not require cleanliness up 
 to the standard for certified milk, but all producers 
 and dealers in milk should recognize and admit the 
 truth that common milk is not nearly as clean as 
 it should be. 
 
 The public is well aware of this fact, and the de- 
 mand for dairy products would be immeasurably 
 increased if thousands of people did not feel an 
 aversion to drinking milk because as they say, "It's 
 so dirty." We can not go to the public and ask all 
 we would like to have unless we, in turn, give them 
 just what they want. The public wants clean milk 
 and I believe that if milk improves in quality the 
 public will use more of it. No person with dirty 
 hands should ever milk a cow and use the milk for 
 human food. A cow's udder should be washed. 
 The hair on the udder and flanks should be chpped 
 short, and to prevent dust and hair from getting 
 into the milk, her flanks and udder should be 
 slightly dampened before milking. A gunnysack 
 cut up in pieces about 14 inches square makes a 
 very good towel on which to dry the udder and the 
 
Market Milk 77 
 
 milker's hands. A clean towel should be used for 
 each milking. 
 
 The cleanliness of milk is usually judged by fil- 
 tering a small amount through a disc of cotton. 
 This is called the sediment test. This test, in a 
 measure determines the amount of filth and for- 
 eign matter which milk contains. Sufficient strain- 
 ing will make most any milk so that it will show 
 a clean record on the sediment test. But remember 
 that a strainer acts as a sort of pulverizer. Milk 
 running through a strainer gradually dissolves and 
 washes away the particles until they are so 
 thoroughly in solution that we can not get them in 
 a clarifying machine. We would prefer milk 
 strained through a metal strainer only, but in 
 many localities health departments require that it 
 be filtered through cloth or cotton. Where this is 
 required we oppose no objections. The greatest 
 difficulty with cloth strainers is that they do not 
 get washed clean enough. A farmer usually rinses 
 out his cloth in cold water and hangs it up to dry. 
 Sour strainers are about the first thing we look for 
 on a farm where the people have been having trou- 
 ble keeping milk sweet. 
 
78 Stock and Stalks 
 
 Absorbent cotton is all right, providing no cloth 
 is used with it, but that it be held between metal 
 straining discs, or that the cloth be thrown away 
 each time with the cotton. Since to throw away 
 cotton strainers each time is expensive, I do not 
 think the system is practical for general use. It is 
 easier and far better to keep dirt from getting into 
 the milk than to let everything go in and then try 
 to get it all out again. 
 
 Sanitation. Sanitation means "pertaining to 
 health." Clean milk might be unsanitary for it 
 might contain injurious bacteria. Bacteria are 
 plants. To avoid infecting milk with bacteria 
 which cause souring and decay we can not depend 
 upon cleanliness alone. The first few streams of 
 milk from each teat of the cow will be found al- 
 ready infected to a considerable extent. In certi- 
 fied dairies the first streams of milk are never used. 
 When cows are not milked dry at each milking 
 there is a considerable development of bacteria that 
 takes place in the teats and udder. Careless milk- 
 ers have their trouble starting before the milk 
 leaves the udder. Various diseases infect the milk 
 of the cow. Milk from cows with garget or dis- 
 eased udders causes sore throats in children and 
 
Market Milk 79 
 
 should never be used as food. Dirt that gets into 
 milk is of itself objectionable, but it is also one of 
 the greatest sources of infection. 
 
 Milk utensils should be sterilized. This may be 
 done by the use of a chlorine solution called Bacil- 
 li-Kill, by boiling water, or by the direct rays of 
 the . sun. Most sterilization is not perfect and 
 even the dust particles in the air contain enough 
 bacteria to, in a measure, re-seed any surface. 
 Bacteria can not grow without moisture. If uten- 
 sils are not washed perfectly and food particles are 
 left for bacteria to grow on, there will immediately 
 start a new development from the re-seeding that 
 will take place after the sterilization. Tin cans can 
 not be washed well enough to make them perfectly 
 free from foodstuffs on which bacteria may live. 
 When milk dealers put cream in cold storage, ex- 
 pecting to hold it sweet for as long as two months 
 they use cans that have never been used before. A 
 metal surface is rough and I know of no way to 
 wash a milk can as perfectly as a milk bottle. The 
 milk utensils should be thoroughly cleaned with 
 washing powder, rinsed thoroughly with boiling 
 water, then carefully dried. In the operation of 
 cleaning cans the most difficult thing to do in a fac- 
 
80 Stock and Stalks 
 
 tory is to get the can properly dried. When it 
 cools down there is likely to be a certain amount of 
 moisture deposited on the inside of the can and 
 there is always enough food left on which bacteria 
 may grow if the can is moist. In milk plants we 
 sterihze all equipment just before using. Cans 
 washed and sterilized at the plant and used on the 
 farm twenty-four or thirty-six hours later become 
 rancid because of being shut with moist air in 
 them. It is our ambition to sometime be able to 
 send cans to the farmers that will remain perfectly 
 sweet, dry and sterile, even if they are kept closed 
 for a week. But now we must confess to imperfec- 
 tion, and cans that get stale before being used are 
 perhaps the greatest menace to our milk supply. 
 If a farmer can set these cans in the sun with the 
 lid off, it will help greatly. If he can scald them 
 with boiling water just before he uses them, it 
 will help even more. 
 
 Some farmers have great difficulty in delivering 
 milk once a day and having it sweet when it ar- 
 rives at the plant. We have kept a bottle of certi- 
 fied milk for more than three weeks in a refrigera- 
 tor where the temperature is above forty degrees 
 and at the end of that time it had not turned sour. 
 
Market Milk 81 
 
 Such results can be only obtained by experts, but it 
 is not difficult to become expert enough to always 
 be able to sell milk that is in a good marketable 
 condition, delivered once a day. 
 
 Cooling Milk. The growth of bacteria in milk 
 depends a great deal upon its cooling. Milk has a 
 great tendency to take up bad odors, and its ten- 
 dency to do this depends upon its temperature. 
 Milk should be cooled within thirty minutes after it 
 is drawn from the cow. If cooled below seventy de- 
 grees immediately and kept at that temperature or 
 below, there will be very little difficulty of milk 
 souring, provided due care has been taken regard- 
 ing sanitation and cleanliness. 
 
 Well water temperature in this cHmate is usually 
 fifty-four degrees. By pumping fresh water 
 through a tank, having it overflow so that the 
 warm water will flow off, it is easy in a short time 
 to get milk as low as sixty-five degrees. When run- 
 ning water is not available, it is better to stir the 
 milk until it is as cold as it will get in such water 
 as you have, then set the cans in a small tank of 
 fresh water that can be pumped by hand if neces- 
 sary. Many farmers use the stock tank to cool the 
 milk in first, then use some half barrels cut off at 
 
82 Stock and Stalks 
 
 a height so that the water can not overflow into the 
 milk but that it will stand slightly higher than the 
 milk in the cans. Use one half-barrel for each can 
 of night's milk. In the morning cool the milk in 
 the tank only. However, the most satisfactory ar- 
 rangement would be to have a small engine with 
 which fresh water may be pumped at milking time, 
 and let the milk tank overflow into the stock tank 
 until the milk is cooled and the tank is full of cold 
 water. A tank should be divided by partitions 
 made of slats running up and down so that a can 
 partly filled may float without tipping over. It is 
 not absolutely necessary that milk be uncovered 
 while it is being cooled, but the cover prevents the 
 milk from cooling as rapidly. Remember that 
 warm water always rises. The cold water will be 
 at the bottom of the tank. Some farmers divide 
 their milk so that the cans will all float. The milk 
 warms the water and the warm water rises above 
 the level of the milk in the cans. Milk should al- 
 ways be covered when left sitting by the road wait- 
 ing for the hauler, and should always be covered 
 in the wagon or truck. Wet the blanket or canvas 
 that covers the milk. This helps to keep it cool. 
 
CHAPTER XL 
 
 EXPERIMENTS BEING TRIED OUT ON OUR 
 DAIRY FARM. 
 
 On our farm we are equipping to produce certi- 
 fied milk. This will be a new business for us. 
 When we have had more experience along this line 
 we may write up the results for publication. How- 
 ever, none of our experiments are far enough along 
 now for us to be justified in giving the results as 
 final. 
 
 Those things which would probably be of great- 
 est interest to farmers are our small grain elevator, 
 the layout of machinery to shell com, grind feed, 
 cut and re-cut alfalfa and our facilities for handling 
 manure. We use electric power which, so far as 
 we know, is the most satisfactory power where it is 
 available. The motor requires no firing up as does 
 a steam engine, and no tinkering such as goes with 
 the use of gasoline. The motors generally run when 
 you want them to and as long as you want them to 
 and give very little trouble. 
 
84 
 
 Stock and Stalks 
 
 Our ensilage cutter is permanently installed at 
 one side of a driveway in the barn. It will fill three 
 silos without re-setting. By the use of a re-cutting 
 attachment with the ensilage cutter we make finely- 
 chopped alfalfa of all the stems that the cows will 
 not eat. Cattle will eat these stems after they are 
 
 Showing arrangemient of machinery. The conveyor to the 
 silage blower is just below the floor. Silage or cut hay drops 
 from the ensilage cutter to this conveyor. Opposite the en- 
 silage cutter is the feed grinder into which runs the grain 
 spout from the corn sheller. The ground feed also flows to 
 the conveyor and by shifting the spout of the corn sheller the 
 shelled corn will go to the conveyor without being ground. 
 

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86 Stock and Stalks 
 
 cut up fine and they make excellent feed for our de- 
 livery horses. The blower (made by the American 
 Harvester Company of Minneapolis) which we use 
 for elevating is separate from the cutter. It is also 
 used to elevate shelled corn, oats and ground feeds 
 to bins overhead. The conveyor to this blower is 
 slightly below the floor level so that ground feed 
 will run from the feed grinder to the conveyor, so 
 also will our shelled corn, or oats that we are un- 
 loading from wagons, and the re-cut alfalfa. Every- 
 thing goes to the blower and is distributed to dif- 
 ferent bins by turning the spout. An ordinary en- 
 silage cutter can be used as an elevator for grain 
 just as well as the separate blower that we use. 
 
 Our system of hauling manure is probably more 
 original than our arrangement for handling feed. 
 We do not shovel the manure out of this barn, 
 neither do we push it out. We wash it out with a 
 two-inch stream of water. The gutters slope from 
 the ends of the barn toward the center, being two 
 feet deep at the center of the barn and one foot 
 deep at the ends. Over these gutters we have cast- 
 iron grates to prevent a cow from slipping down. 
 A ten-inch tile leads from the gutter to a large cess- 
 pool outside of the barn and from this cess-pool we 
 
Experiments on Dairy Farm. 
 
 87 
 
 Showing the gutter behind the cows with some of the 
 grates removed. The gutter is being filled with water. When 
 full the cover to the opening to a 10-inch tile is removed and 
 the rush of the water carries all with it. 
 
88 
 
 Stock and Stalks 
 
 pump the sewerage along a ridge to the highest 
 ground of the farm and irrigate it down over the 
 fields. We have an abundant water supply avail- 
 able, cheap power, and hope this plan will prove a 
 practical means of handling manure. So far it has 
 
 Electric-driven sump pump with 3-inch intake and 2-inch 
 discharge which pumps manure and water at the rate of 200 
 gallons per minute. 
 
Experiments on Dairy Farm 89 
 
 been a very easy matter to flush the manure from 
 the gutters and our sewerage pump throws 200 gal- 
 lons per minute through a four-inch pipe up the hill 
 as far as we want to go. We use cut straw for bed- 
 ding and run plenty of water in with the manure 
 so the pump will not clog. The picture of the pump 
 shown is taken from the catalogue of the American 
 Well Works and does not represent our cess-pool 
 but is similar to the outfit we use. 
 
 Our water pump requires a ten horse-power 
 motor and will throw 150 gallons per minute. 
 Besides a means of getting manure hauled out, 
 we expect to do some irrigating in dry weather. 
 While running both the pump at the well and the 
 sewerage pump we require about ten kilowatts of 
 current per hour. This costs us about five cents 
 per kilowatt. 
 
 We have installed the King ventilating system. 
 Where a large herd of cows are kept in a barn such 
 a ventilating system is a great help. Our barn is 
 warm and comfortable but not steamy and close. 
 
 These systems cost a good deal of money and may 
 not all prove practical. We are not urging that our 
 example be followed but will be glad to give any of 
 our readers such data as we may have concerning 
 
90 
 
 Stock and Stalks 
 
 the success of these operations. At our barn we 
 pi'epare the feed for all of our delivery horses and 
 we expect to keep sixty cows. The method of 
 handling manure will eliminate most of the breed- 
 ing places of flies. Since this milk will be used raw 
 and is produced for babies especially, extra pre- 
 cautions are necessary in our case. These things 
 we have taken into consideration when planning so 
 
 Interior of the barn showing large ventilating flues, 
 the side of the room are the air-intakes. 
 
 At 
 
Experiments on Dairy Farm 
 
 91 
 
 expensive a layout. In a few months we will know 
 more about these systems and in a few years we 
 will have a conclusive test made. Those who wish 
 to drop in occasionally to see how we are getting 
 along will be welcome. 
 
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 Interior view of milk house showing sterilizing oven, cooler 
 bottle filler and conveyor for cases. 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 DIFFERENT POINTS OF VIEW 
 
 Even though I have a farm that at one time I 
 went in debt for and which I paid for by milking 
 cows, and even though I have spent more of my 
 working years on a farm than in an office, I can 
 not always pass as a farmer. At one time I at- 
 tended a farmers' meeting where the city man was 
 up for discussion and a fellow nudged me and said, 
 "Old man, how do you like it? Haven't we got you 
 city guys figured out about right?" I answered, 
 "City people are just like country people in at least 
 one respect. They are just as much inclined to 
 think their own troubles are greater than any one 
 else's." 
 
 Farmers sometimes speak of themselves as the 
 producers, and so, too, do the labor union men. 
 Even the business men at their meetings are in- 
 clined to pat themselves on the back and to take 
 credit for a very liberal share in production. We 
 all look at things from our own point of view. We 
 have gone through certain experiences and have 
 
Points of View 93 
 
 not experienced others. We can not all expect to be 
 of the same opinion. 
 
 But we all have the ability to understand each 
 other when we are given the chance to see things 
 as other people see them, and it is this understand- 
 ing which I hope to promote as I write this brief 
 chapter. I write this not as a farmer but as a city 
 man giving opinions gradually formed in sev- 
 eral years as a city milk distributor. 
 
 To me all are producers alike. The man who 
 sews the shoe for the miner who digs the ore that 
 makes the plow that plows the field that raises the 
 wheat that makes the bread that the grocer dis- 
 tributes, does what is just as important but no 
 more so than any other man or woman in the long 
 line which production takes. If one may insist 
 that his task forms the foundation, another man 
 may claim that his forms the roof. But what is 
 the difference? Without whom can we well get 
 along ? 
 
 We hear much about the "middle man" who is 
 considered a luxury or rather an extravangance 
 that ought not to be permitted. Well, I am one of 
 those middle men and the thing does not look that 
 way at all to me. I think that all we do for the 
 
94 Stock and Stalks 
 
 people — all the service we render, is worth what we 
 get for it. We middlemen have our troubles and 
 call ourselves producers and are not in any way- 
 conscious of being ''parasites/' 
 
 What economic laws apply particularly to one set 
 of people but do not apply to others down the line ? 
 What makes one man's lot harder than that of an- 
 other, and who really has the hardest row to hoe? 
 What shall we do to the other fellow to keep him 
 from crime and have justice? These are questions 
 answered in as many different ways as there are 
 people with different viewpoints. Do we doubt 
 the patriotism of the club women in cities who de- 
 cided to boycott eggs and milk to bring down the 
 price just at the time when these commodities were 
 very hard to produce and the price already too low 
 for the cost ? If we do, it is because we do not un- 
 derstand their viewpoint and their lack of informa- 
 tion on which to form different conclusions. 
 
 A few years ago I often used a certain argu- 
 ment which now I do not use any more because 
 now I am over on the other side, as they say. 
 From the other side of the fence the proposition 
 does not look at all the same. The argument is 
 that the farmer sells his produce in town at the 
 
Points of View 95 
 
 price the city man is willing to pay and then must 
 buy at the price that the city man will sell for. 
 Since the city man does all the price fixing the 
 farmer gets the worst end of the bargain all of the 
 time. 
 
 I have no doubt that various markets are 
 juggled by speculators of various kinds and that 
 there are many exploiters in cities who have their 
 knives whetted for any one's meat they can get. 
 The world has not yet worked out its complete 
 salvation. We all have a few suggestions that we 
 would not mind making to the party in power. 
 But of this I feel sure, the majority of business 
 men make their living by rendering service the 
 same as do farmers. They are up against proposi- 
 tions that are a good deal alike. I have not no- 
 ticed much difference. I have to pay my farmers 
 a good or better bargain than they can get any 
 where else. In the same way I must compete for 
 labor. I must render the best service the customer 
 can get for the money. After I do all of these 
 things, if there is anything left I may have it, and 
 my luck at different times is good, bad, and all 
 shades between good and bad. All of us city busi- 
 ness men would make more if we could. You can 
 
96 Stock and Stalks 
 
 at least credit us with being ambitious, but more of 
 us fail than do business men in the country. 
 
 At this time probably half of the factories in the 
 United States are closed down, banks are prac- 
 tically all in a critical condition, stores are adver- 
 tising merchandise at half price and yet no one 
 seems to buy and the farmers' troubles need no de- 
 scription. What shall we do? Well, I know some 
 things we should not do that I can illustrate with 
 a story. 
 
 A man in Arizona looked down over a ledge of 
 rocks on a cliff and saw several rattle snakes sun- 
 ning themselves on a ledge thirty feet below. Hav- 
 ing a small pistol he shot a bullet down among 
 them. Immediately there started a battle at the 
 end of which all the rattlesnakes were bitten. In 
 a few minutes they were all dead. An examina- 
 tion showed that the bullet had apparently not hit 
 any snake. The snakes had all lost their lives as a 
 result of a misunderstanding. 
 
 I heard Major General Wood make a speech in 
 favor of universal military training but his argu- 
 ment had a different meaning for me than he in- 
 tended it should have. He argued that there will 
 be war as long as people have honest differences of 
 
Points of Vieiv 97 
 
 opinion — therefore always be prepared for war. 
 To me it seems that since no amount of preparation 
 and war equipment can insure peace we must pre- 
 vent that honest difference of opinion. We must 
 keep with all people a better understanding. Wars 
 are misunderstandings and well meaning people 
 murder each other because the misunderstandings 
 are kept up with censorship and propaganda. Peo- 
 ple are armed with poisons more deadly than the 
 rattlesnake and all will fight at the drop of the hat 
 if they feel that they are wronged. What then 
 brings any hope of things better? It is the spirit 
 that says **Come let us reason together" that 
 points the way to "Peace on earth, good will to- 
 ward men." 
 
 There is one thing that all should remember and 
 that is that we are all of us the public. There is 
 no corporation ''without a heart and without a soul" 
 more heartless than the public. All men strive to 
 do the thing the public wants most to have done 
 for only those who please the public's fancy get 
 paid for their efforts. The public pays no one in- 
 terest on investment. It pays no one for time or 
 effort spent. It pays for the service it wants at the 
 time it wants it and all who misjudge the public 
 
98 Stock and Stalks 
 
 demand may get nothing. Any new process or new 
 invention puts many people out of business for the 
 public turns coldly from the old to the new service 
 v/hich it more desires. If we produce too much of 
 anything the price always goes below cost. Where 
 there is an undersupply of any thing, there is the 
 best market and the more profitable business. So it 
 is that by paying or withholding the price this great 
 Dame Public keeps all courting her favor and doing 
 the things she wants most to have done. She wins 
 with every winner and then taxes his income, and 
 lets the loser lose alone. 
 
 But although we are all up against the same gen- 
 eral laws that govern business there is a difference 
 between farming and most other business. A con- 
 tractor will build a building for us if we agree to 
 p?y a price that he figures will pay his cost plus a 
 profit. Otherwise he will not do the work. Con- 
 tracting is supposed to be a somewhat hazardous 
 business but it is not so risky as farming for the 
 builder knows before he starts what price he is to 
 get. A farmer can not tell until he is ready ,to 
 market his crop what the market will be. The 
 farmer must pay the cost, hoping. Weather has a 
 
Points of View 99 ] 
 
 great deal to do with results in farming operations ! 
 
 and that makes the business more risky. j 
 
 Business men in cities as a rule can work much ' 
 
 closer to their pay checks. This makes it possible : 
 for them to come much nearer a system of always 
 
 getting cost plus a profit. Manufacturers usually ' 
 
 aim to take orders ahead of their output so that \ 
 
 knowing their cost and having their goods already I 
 
 sold at a profit leaves them comparatively clear ] 
 
 sailing. How the farmer can get on the same basis i 
 
 I do not know. I 
 
 But city business is not all a round of pleasure, 
 
 for city competition is keen. If one farmer raises i 
 
 forty bushels of corn per ace and another can raise ! 
 
 sixty,- each receives compensation in proportion to j 
 
 his crop. But if one merchant had that much ad- j 
 
 vantage over his competitor the unfortunate one | 
 
 would be put clear out of business. Customers to I 
 
 a merchant are as valuable as pigs are to a farmer 1 
 
 and it is perfectly legal to get the other fellow's ' 
 customers in broad daylight. So we in competitive 
 
 business keep busier than some people think. \ 
 
 I have often been asked what I think of farmers' \ 
 organizations. Well, most business men in other 
 
 lines of business have associations. They usually i 
 
100 stock and Stalks 
 
 result in some good. It is those who expect too 
 much that are disappointed. So simple a thing as 
 an organization can not cure all of the difficulties 
 in farming. Some farmers in Kentucky organized 
 to boost the tobacco market by agreeing among 
 themselves to plant fewer acres. After the agree- 
 ment many expected a high price for tobacco and 
 planted more acres. This is about the kind of co- 
 operation we all have learned to expect in associa- 
 tions where money interests are involved. These 
 farmers were right, however, in realizing that in 
 order to boost the market they had to limit the 
 supply of the product. The law of supply and de- 
 mand always works. It works to the advantage of 
 him who can limit the supply or can increase the 
 demand. 
 
 Let me tell you how a trust operates. There is 
 an agreement to fix prices and production is limited 
 to what will sell at the fixed price. Then there are 
 fights made against any one outside of the combi- 
 nation who undertakes to produce that line of 
 goods. The trust magnate knows well that to con- 
 trol a market he must limit the amount of goods 
 for sale by combining to fight competition. With- 
 out that feature trusts would be harmless. A trust 
 
Points of View 101 
 
 is a "combination in restraint of trade" — a fighting 
 organization. Common business men are not afraid 
 to compete with trusts. It is always the trust 
 that is afraid. To compete means to race. Trusts 
 always want to hamstring the fellows against whom 
 they are racing. 
 
 To go back to farmers' organizations, on account 
 of the nature of their business farmers can never 
 successfully organize to fight down competition of 
 other farmers and prevent them from producing. 
 They can not then create an artificial market. 
 Others can sometimes combine to take advantage of 
 farmers. Farmers can never *'get even." But 
 here is a truth that many do not realize and it is 
 that although some may have a less difficult busi- 
 ness than farming, not one person out of a thou- 
 sand can avoid competition or has any unfair ad- 
 vantage over other people. Those who would differ 
 from this statement could only change the figures 
 in the proportion. Change them as you like, and 
 yet we must agree that it is a good thing that a ma- 
 jority must earn a living in which there is no graft 
 for they will stand for truth and fairness in the 
 land. We want freedom in the country and there 
 cannot be freedom without fair competition — equal 
 
102 Stock and Stalks 
 
 opportunities for all as nearly as the law can in- 
 sure them. 
 
 Where co-operation among farmers can increase 
 efficiency they should co-operate. The same is true 
 of any other business. For any one to co-operate 
 in a legitimate way for legitimate purpose is al- 
 ways a legitimate thing to do. Co-operation need 
 not interfere with free competition or fair play. 
 I have no word of warning to give to farmers' or- 
 ganizations that I would not apply as well to others. 
 But I have a warning that I would like to sound 
 to all the world. Beware of him who accuses all 
 others of guilt. Beware of him who sees only bad 
 in the world. There are those ''reformers," they 
 may be called, who would poison us against our 
 fellows. Watch closely the suggestions of such. 
 Test their advice by the golden rule. A propaganda 
 of hate is never needed in a good cause. Peace on 
 earth can only come by fairness and good will. We 
 need each other's point of view.