Newspapers / The Progressive Farmer (Raleigh, … / Aug. 30, 1906, edition 1 / Page 1
Part of The Progressive Farmer (Raleigh, N.C.) / About this page
This page has errors
The date, title, or page description is wrong
This page has harmful content
This page contains sensitive or offensive material
To The Young man on The Farm. Pago 10. v I urn mhMER. A Farm and Home Weekly for trie Carolina, Virginia, Tennessee and Georgia. PROGRESSIVE PARMER VOL. XXI. NO. 29. THE COTTON PLANT VOL. XXIII. NO. 28. RALEIGH, N. C, AUGUST 30, 1906. Weekly $1 a Year. CAN I MAKE DAIRYING PAY? President It. H. Gower, of the North Carolina Dairymens' Association, Answers the Question and Illustrates His Argument Profits in Increas ed Soil Fertility and Sales of Imved Stock. Can dairying be made profitable on an average farm? This question is being asked by hundreds of farm ers in North Carolina to-day. I speak from fifteen years experience and say yes, it can be done. If you like the business and will go at it properly, stick to it long enough, you will some day have a fine herd of valuable cows, fertile farm, a comfortable home and a healthy bank account. But like everything else worth having it will cost something and it is well enough to count the cost be fore vou begin, and begin right. In the first place, the farm should be located not more than six miles, I should say, from the place of delivery of butter or shipping point. It should have something like five acres per cow of natural pasture land, includ ing bermuda grass and Japan clover on the upland, and the different va rieties of meadow grass on the low land. t The part of the land you are to cultivate should- have a clay sub soil so as to admit a high state of cultivation. Fof ust here is the big gest profit we will ever get out of the business. Big Profits in Increased Soil Fertility. A heard of twenty-five cows in milk (which will mean forty includ ing the whole herd) will double the value of a 150-acre farm in less. than ten years. I have in mind now a ten acre picee of highly improved land that pays a yearly profit of fifty dol lars per acre in cotton. Less than a mile away is an unimproved farm that does not make more than half enough to pay expenses. The im proved land at $100 per acre will pay for itself in two years. The unim proved cultivated, at a loss of five dollars' per aci-e, would eat up its value of ten dollars per acre in two years. If you stick a pin right here you will get something worth having. So much for the farm. Now about the cow. If you are going into business and mean busi ness, by all means start right. If you can't do any better, why start with grades and non-descripts, but if possible start rfght. Get some reg istered stock if you have to strain your credit to do so. It will be like bread cast upon the water and will return sevenfold.. It Pays to Use Good Breeds. Let me explain. Suppose the reg istered stock does not pay any more profit in butter than, the grades: in five or six years from the time you start you will begin to have your an nual sale. Fine registered heifers and males will easily sell for fifty per cent more than grades. So if you get cost for grades you get fifty per cent on the registered. I do not mean that all the begin ner's herd should be registered, but enough for a foundation. With these two items alone, namely, the improvement in the land and the in crease in the stock clear profit, you are doing good business. But it is possible to do more than this, if you are the man for the place. My observation is that in this busi ness there is not only more in the man than in the land, but also more in the man than in the cow. After you have thoroughly learned the busi ness yourself and there are a thou sand things to learn by actual ex perience, you perhaps can vurn the work over to the boys or the hired men and take life more easy, but not until then. There are a hundred and one details about the business to which somebody who knows must give his personaland intelligent at tention every day. But this makes the true dairy farmer ove the busi ness all the more. Just here I wish to draw a com parison and lay down a business pro position. Let us suppose two men, A and B, of equal capacity, each buy a farm of one hundred and fifty acres, going in debt for the same for ten dollars per acre. Each farm has fifty acres in cultivation. The Case of Mr. All Cotton. A farms all cotton, keeping on the place two mules and perhaps one cow. At the end of ten years has A paid for the place? No, he still owes nearly one-half of it including the accumulated interest and the farm is still worth only ten dollars per acre. How a Dairy Farmer Gets His Pro fits. B, notwithstanding he owes fif teen hundred dollars for the farm, gets somebody to back him, and goes into debt five hundred more. Of this five hundred he spends fifty to wire fence a hundred acre pasture; fifty to build a temporary barn, $150 to build a dairy house and put in sepa rator and proper equipments. He then has two hundred and fifty dol lars to invest in cows. Fifty of this should go for the best registered male to be had. Two hundred ought to get two registered cows and three good grades. B is pretty badly in debt now, but while A has to wait fnr n hnie nf cotton for his first 1 VI w v money, B's butter check comes in at the end of the first week. And then fifty-two times a year ever after wards. I will admit that B will have a close time for a few years, but this is all well enough. He begins to lm nrove the fertility of his soil. Part of the land is planted in cotton or some money crop, but the bulk ot it in food crops. By the end of ten years this farm will have more than rirmhled in value. The farm mort gage will have been paid off and for i . r- ' " ' ' ' "COTTAGE GROVE FARM" DAIRY WAGON, GREENSBORO. Neat, attractive wagons and clean, white-clad drivers will do much to help along the increasing interest in dairying now . reported in Sorth Carolina. ' gotten, the herd of cows that cost two hundred and fifty dollars to be gin with is now worth as much as they and the! farm both cost in the beginning. Please note the j differ ence now between A and B. Humoring the Land. This is no overdrawn contract. The all cotton man will have the easiest time,-I will admit. He will have more time to loaf in his young days, but more cause to complain later on. I believo more and more in old mother. She is the bank of all banks. Every man's ambition should be to own for himself and his a spot somewhere to call their own. I once asked the best farmer in my county how he managed to grow such big crops. "Why," he said, "I just humour the land," and here lies the great secret. We have first and last to go to her for everything. Better keep her in a good humor. "All cotton" makes her sick. It gives her the blues. Why? Simply because you take everything away from her except a few dry stalks and leaves, and' these are soon washed away by the "winter rain. But I have never known her to fail to smile upon the dairy farmer, and add to him her richest blessings. R. H. GOWER. Johnston Co., N. C. and whey. I have only one cow which I keep in a pasture. What is the cause of this milk malady? What is the remedy? If somebody 'will answer The Progres sive Farmer he will greatly oblige, A READER. Franklin Co., N." C. Sweet Curdling: What to do When Milk "Turns" Sweet. Messrs. Editors: For several weeks I have had trouble with my milk, and am not able to find the cause. My milk "turner"; sweet; that is, it has the taste of sweet milk after ripening. I get about half as much butter as usual when my milk gets in this condition. After churning my butter milk di vides itself into hard grains of curd (Answer by Prof. J. C. Kendall, North Carolina A. & M. College.) The trouble which your reader has had with milk "turning" or "sour ing" and still remaining sweet and known to dairymen as "sweet curdl ing," is a very common trouble, especially during warm weather. The appearance of the curd is very much the same as when the milk sours normally, except that it is softer and tends to be somewhat slimy, and has a sweet taste. The casim or curd soon begins to disap pear, leaving a watery portion, or whey. This disease of the milk is very troublesome in the manufacture of cheese, resulting in a considerable loss in the yield. This is a germ disease and gaines an entrance to the milk after it, is drawn. There are quite a number of species of bacteria capable of bringing about these changes of milk, one of the most common of which is the hay bacilli. Treatment. All dairy utensils must be thoroughly cleaned by scald ing or straining and the milk placed where it will be free from dust. If butter is to be made by adding a little sour milk which is free from this trouble to the milk or cream which is to be churned in order to bring about a vigorous souring of the cream, it will hold these undesir able fermentations in check. There is a but in every man's for tunes, because there is a but in ev ery man's character. Maclaren.
The Progressive Farmer (Raleigh, N.C.)
Standardized title groups preceding, succeeding, and alternate titles together.
Aug. 30, 1906, edition 1
1
Click "Submit" to request a review of this page. NCDHC staff will check .
0 / 75