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Wl\& Dairy,
THE JERSEY COW.
A Splendid Treatise on this Great Dairy
Breed.
BY D. M. SHANKS.
For profit on the farm and in the dairy
■be stands to-day without a peer, it is
needles* in this connection to cite the
man}' lists, both public and private, in
which she lias demonstrated her super
iority. It would bike ninny pages—in
fact, many whole issues of this paper to
record them ; but it is the purpose of this
article to call your attention to facts with
in the observation of every intelligent
dairyman. If you wish to sell milk or
cream to the oily resident, what is it
that always finds ready customers at an
advanced price? Why. Jersey milk and
Jersey cream. The demand is always
greater than the supply. If yon wish to
make butter that will sell for a price that
will bring you a profit, that in »rain, lla
vor and color is near perfection, you
must have Jersey cream to rnnke it of. If
you are a patron of a creamery, you will
receive Irom 25 to 88 1 8 percent, more
for Jersey milk than you can get for the
milk from cows of other breeds or no
breed. Why? Because the creamery
pays for milk according to the amount of
bu'ter fat contained in it. and while the
milk from the average herd of so-called
general purpose cows tests less than 4
percent., many times not over .'! percent.,
milk from pure bred and high grade
•Jerseys tests from •"> percent, to 0 per
cent, and often much higher—ami is paid
for accordingly.
But, says one man to inc. while your
Jersejs yive rich milk, they do not give
iia much as the common cows do. I find
this is quite ii common mistake with
those who have not bad practical exper
ience with the Jerseys in the dairy.
While it is true that many rows of mixed
breed or no breed, coming fresh us most
of them do iv spring or summer on good
pasture, give a generous flow of milk, we
find that tlie great majority of them will
slacken the How in from two to three
months, are strippers at six months, and
dry at from seven to nine months—and
the profit they have made, If any, goes
to feed them for the three or four mouths
remaining of the year, leaving, them in
debt to their owner. While the little
Jersey along side of them may not start
out with so great a flow, she will keep it
up much longer and be yielding you a
profit months alter thy other lias quit
paying for her feed — and in this test as
in all other* is usually found in the lead.
A prominent dairyman said to me re
cently: "When I beyim dairying some
fourteen years ago, I undertook to estab
lish a paying herd by buying up in the
vicinity the best of the neighborhood
RANCHE AND RANGE.
common cows—keeping a record of their
milk and gradually cutting out the poor
est and replacing them with others that
L could buy or raise; but for the first
throe years 1 found that upon footing up
the ledger the balance was on the wrong
side, and I was about to give up the
dairy business as unprofitable. But at
about this time a creamery plant whs es
tablished in my neighborhood and I con
cluded to try Ibe c»M a for another year,
milking some 25 cows and delivering
their milk to the creamery. Having the
milk of each of my cows tested sepa
rately at the creamery, and keeping a
strict record of the number of pounds of
milk given during the year, 1 found that
many of my largest milkers were mv
poorest cows so far as the money returns
were concerned. In the herd during this
year's test were three cows all purchased
of one man, a neighbor, who hail recent-*
ly come to that county, bringing some
cows with him from a distant state that
were, as the returns showed, the most
profitable 1 had. Upon making inquiry
of their former owner I found that the
cows each traced her lineage .back to a
thoroughbred Jersey bull, each having
26 per cent, of his blood. This Bet me to
thinking, as previous to this time 1 had
thought of the .Jersey as a sort ot gentle
man's plaything, good perhaps for the.
city resident to keep in his dooryard to
furnish him with cream for. his morning
codec, but of little or no. value to the
farmer or practical dairyman.
"However, '.lie returns from the year's
Ittkts pointed to but one logical conclu
sion, viz.: if so little Jersey blood was
good more would be better; and as a re
sult of my cogitations I bought a thor
oughbred Jersey Lull, aim for the next
few years bred all my cows to him, sav
ing and luisitig the heifer calves. I also
purchased shortly after this a couple of
thoroughbred Jersey heifer*, With these
and the half-breed heifers when they
came in milk —that is, the first year's
batch of them, still delivering my milk to
the creamery—l found 1 had increased
the efficiency of my herd as sliown by
the net profit received, over -"> per cent.
".Since that time up to the present I
have been buying a lew thoroughbred
Jerseys each year and rinsing more, until
today my herd, consisting of some 00
head of thoroughbred and higb grade
Jerseys, pays me, as shown by last
month's returns from the creamery, an
increase in net profit cow for cow of over
150 per cent, as compared with the be*t
returns from my herd of common cows,
notwithstanding the depreciation in the
price of dairy products since the day of
the common cows in my herd." .
It is such practical tests as these Chat
give the Jersey cow her prominence, for
after till the final test is the lest of in
profit, ami there the Jersey cow is al
ways to the front. Ami then she is the
most beautiful ami gentle of her kind,
and her hcaufy and gentleness has a
practical value not generally recognized.
I have noticed on the farm and in the
dairy where hired help, not always of
the best, must be kept to assist iv the
work, that even the roughest and least
intelligent of hired men (and owners too
for that matter) would, when the sleek
Jersey came in the way, give her a
fiiendly greeting or a irentle pat, while
the cow of coarser looks nnd more un
ruly temper would be met with a curse
or kick and not infrequently by a club;
until by force of association, as it seemed,
with the beautiful and gentle Jersey,
they became so far harmonized as to
treat all the stock with much greater
kindness, thus putting dollars in their
owner's pocket, as nothing pays better
than kind treatment. And let the dairy
man or farmer with the quick and vi.
-go vented temper (alas that there should
he such) become the owner and possessor
of a single well bred Jersey cow and she
will do much toward reforming his
habits, to his great pecuniary profit.
For these and many other reasons that
ppace will not allow me to give bere, I
would say to the fanners and dairymen
of Washington, buy the Jersey cow, buy
lier Dumeroufiiy, feed her generously,
neat her kindly, and she will help you
to lift that mortgage 00 your farm. Ed
ucate the boys, dower the girls, and pro
vide a sinking fund to sustain you in
your old a^e; and finally she will make
the state of Washington renowned
throughout the world for the supreme
excellence of her dairy products.
North Yakim a, Wash.
A WELL-BRED JERSEY.
Norman Woodhouse is the owner of
''Dr. Stewart" No. ;>)2.37, reg. in the
American Jersey Cattle Club. This an
imal is of St. Lambert stock.
Mr. A. K. Burkett, of the Glades
RftUCh, White Salmon, Wash., who
formerly possessed Dr. Stewart, has this
to suy:
"He is with one exception the best
caif dropped in my herd in the year '08.
His breeding cannot be surpassed ; he is
directly from the finest strains of Jersey
blood in the country —nearly a pure St.
Lambert from which family were eight of
the twenty five prize Jerseys at the-
World's Fair."
The Jersey is the most profitable
dairy cow. I believe more than ever in
the special purpose breed. —Adam Stev
ens, Kitlitas county.
BREED YOtTR rows T0 A
Registered Jersey Bull.
Z3SI. STEWABT, ILTo. 30,307.
ofilio 'unions si. Lambert butter ■train.
Kervlw fee, $2. For Ihe season, 96,
NOM MA N VVOOUIIOIT.SK,
A lit up uin, Wash.
