VOL. LXI,?PB.LIC LIBRARM INDIANAPOLIS. OCTOBER 6, 1906.
NO. 40
SELECriNQ A tttlrfcK FOR THE DAIRY
Oood Blood Is the First Item
1st Premium.—The first and most important thing in selecting your coming
herd of dairy cows is the blood and breed.
I prefer Jersey cows for cream and butter
products. They do not give as large a
flow of milk as some other breeds do, but
unless you intend to sell milk alone, it will
not pay as well to keep the other breeds
for dairy use. Get as near pure bred stock
in the dams as you can. However, if
they are not full blooded, but have the
points of the good dairy cow and prove to
be good milkers and profitable butter cows,
breed them to a good blooded male and
the calves will in most cases be satisfactory, especially if proper care has been
taken of mother and calf.
If you have no good cows to breed, and
wish tc buy your calves for a good herd,
you can be guided by these points: In
Jerseys see that the tongue is black and
that the tail is slim. The udder should
be of good shape, and should have four
good-sized teats, uniformly placed. I
have seen fine cows (in every other respect) bat, with such deformed udders as
to mako it impossible to milk them with
both hands; no dairyman wants such a
cow  as   this. The  nostrils   should   be
large; the legs of medium height—a long
legged cow is very seldom a good dairy
cow. The body of fair size, the uuder
line with a good curve to it—the dairy
cow has a good "barrel" on her. The
back bones should stick up, and the part
just back of the shoulder blades should be
thin. The hips should be wide apart, with
a wide space between the hips and first
rib. The neck should be clean cut, the
forehead wide and dishing, with a good
looking eye.
The calf is best to judge when it is four
to six weeks old, but a practical dairyman can pick a good calf when it is a
ftw days old.
After selecting your calves, feed them
well with ground oats and shipstuff, and
shelled com, clover hay and good fodder;
and do not neglect the skim milk. Feed
this during the first six months if possible. Give the calves bone and muscle
food resulting in good healthy constitutions; provide good shelter in bad weather,
and they in return will be good, gentle,
profitable cows, that you can boast about
with genuine pride.
Interested  Dairyman.
Be Careful Id Choosing
2d Prmeium.—The prime factor in successful dairying is the selection of profitable dairy stock. The market value of
their dairy productsc must more than
counterbalance the market value of the
food consumed and care bestowed upon
them. I believe a good many dairymen
make the mistake of feeding the young
heifer calf too lavishly during its early
life. Such feed as steers get is not such
as the dairy calf should have. It is usually fattening food, and the result is that
the calf becomes excessively fat without
sufficient muscular or bony development.
If a dairyman treats both his steer and
heifer calf alike, and gives them full
feed, It is useless to expect profitable
dairy cows. Feed the dairy heifer in
quantities that will come just a little short
of satisfying its appetite.
A heifer calf selected for dairy purposes
should have as nearly as possible a perfect
figure and constitution. When the calf
is boru, if it is such a heifer as is wanted,
let it have the first milk from the cow,
teaching it to drink as soon as possible.
You can begin to feed it skim milk in a
few days, gradually mixing it in with the
fresh and feeding it warm, about the temperature of fresh milk. When a month
old the calf can eat some good clover hay,
including a little ground corn aud oats.
The ideal dairy cow has a medium sized
head and neck, the body is medium to
Jong, with a great depth through the diges
tive region, and has a nicely shaped ud
der,   for one-half of the value of the cow,
Hictcrtnarg &cpavlmc.il
Edited bi L.  A. Grlener,  M.  F.  V.  S.,  14-16 S
Alabama St., Indlanapolla.   Adrlce by mail $1
My horse has some kind of breaking out
on the head, shoulders and legs and a few
on his body. He rubs and bites. Some
times he will bite the blood out. It raises
up iu lumps with a scab aud when the
scab is pulled off it leaves a small hole in
the hide. The horse is four years old
aud his legs are almost a solid scab. He
has had it two falls. I have had him doctored, but they cure it up and it comes
back.      The uext fall his hair turns up.
is in the udder. The cow for profit in
the dairy must have the ability to convert food into milk and not into beef. She
should be bred to the best dairy sire that
can be found. It will take years to
build up a good dairy herd, and one should
be careful in breeding and purchasing. I
believe the best plan in starting out in the
dairy business is to purchase good heifers,
just a little before they become fresh. By
careful selection and care along this line,
one can build up a good herd in a few
j ears. See how many of the herd come
up to the standard of what a dairy cow
should be, and eliminate the scrubs as
fast as you can. M. A.
Kosciusko Co.
Premiums of $1, 75 cents and 50 cents
are given for the best, second and third
best articles for the Experience Department each week. Manuscript should be
sent direct to the Indiana Farmer Company, and should reach us one week before date of publication.
Topics for future numbers:
No. 553, Oct 13.—Give directions for
keeping a horse's feet in good condition,
and include points on shoeing.
No. 554, Oct. 20— What does it cost
you, one year with another, to produce a
bushel of wheat? Is wheat, when not
seeded to clover, st profitable crop?
No. 555, Oct. 27.—Give what you consider the surest method of securing a
stand of clover on wheat.
Mrs. Rachell Johnson Losey, said to be
the oldest woman in Indiana died recently,
iu this city, aged 99 years.
but it is slick, this fall, where there are no
lumps. J. L.
Answer:—The description you give
would indicate that your horse is suffering
from a local trouble of tbe skin, which no
doubt is due to local infection. I should
recommend the thorough cleansing, disinfecting and whitewashing of the stable
and stalls which will remove the cause.
In regard to the horse itself I should
recommend two or three baths with warm
water and common soft soap, after which
daily sponging with some sort of antiseptic such as Zenoleum which can be had
at most drug stores or from the manufacturers 27 Bates street, Detroit, Mich.
This bathing of the parts with the antiseptic should be continued for at least 10
to 20 days once or twice a day.
I have a colt that is very lame. There
are no marks or swollen places on it to indicate cause. I had it on pasture and it
took lame all of a sudden. Last June it
was snagged in front right knee with an
dd rusty nail and became quite swollen. I
colled a veterinarian and after three
weeks' treatment it got well. Now it is
lame again in same quarter, but I cannot
tell just where. Some say it is in shoulder, others in pastern and others in knee.
I want your opinion; the lameness seems
to be in shoulder. Do you think it came
from old wound? The colt is two years
old. G. Smith.
Answer:—To your last question I
would answer no. But as to the cause
of lameness or location I am unable to
give any idea of the cause of lameness.
Your description is such that no one could
diagnose the lameness without seeing the
colt. I should advise a thorough examination of the foot and if nothing is found
there call in your local veterinarian and
have him locate the lameness for you. It
may be due to a formation of a bony
tumor on or near a joint which if left
alone will be the ruin of your colt.
We have a cow that gives bloody milk
or thereare smallclots of blood in the milk.
She is our best butter cow; have tried several different remedies and done no permanent good, so thought we would ask your
advice through your paper.
J. G. Sanders.
Answer:—Best of the parts are the
necessary means to be employed, instead
of milking the cow as usual I would use
milk syphons. This by itself 'will remove the irritation and give the parts a
chance to get well, which will be all that
will be necessary.
Please tell me what is the matter with
my cow. She has sore teats which have
broken out with small blisters that are
filled with a watery matter. These sores
hunt open and the whole teat gets sore.
I4ast year she had the same disease that
ot mraenced this way, then those sores
healed up and the milk caked in her udder
and was swelled np. She had to be
milked till she was dry. It lasted altogether about two months, then she was
well again. This is the second time she
lias had that disease. She eats well and
is not sick any other way. She is a
Jersey, and had her second calf.
O. D. Bird.
Answer:—By employing the above
method of milking and washing the teats
with one teaspoonful of tincture of iron
and half teacupful of water two times a
day the cow will get well in a short time.
The court decisions on farm affairs, begun in our last number, and to be continued monthly or oftener in the future,
by Judge J. W. Thompson, of this city,
will prove of great value to our readers,
and we recommend them to file away the
numbers of the Farmer in which they appear, for future reference. They may
save them law suits and court expenses
amounting to hundreds of dollars.
One of our postal correspondents quotes
the selling price of wheat in his county.
Jay, as 67c and corn at 65c. It is a
very rare thing for the two grains to be
so nearly equal in value. The high price
of pork keeps corn up, and the immense
crop of wheat keeps that product down.
If any county comes nearer making a
bushel of corn equal to a bushel of wheat
we should like to know it.
We are eating green corn from our third
planting; it is the Mexican, small ears but
plump and sweet. Our pole Lima beans,
that have yielded well all the season, are
now in full bloom and setting a bigger
crop than ever, but the frost will soon
cut them down. What a crop there would
be if the frost would keep away another
month.
General John Cobnrn, one of our oldest
citizens, tells us he does not remember a
year when killing frost has held off so long
as this. Is this the opinion of other old
citizens?
R. B. Halstead, Johnson Co., is reported as having cut and shocked 36 shocks of
corn 14 hills square in one day last week.
How will that do, considering that It was
Johnson county corn?