WINTER FEED FOR COWS.


The increasing demand for milk in our cities and villages, and for
gilt-edged butter during the winter season, is leading some of our most
intelligent farmers to study more carefully the problem of winter
dairying. "It costs more to make butter in winter than in summer," says
the American Agriculturalist, "but if a select class of customers in
cities or elsewhere, are willing to pay for the increased cost of
producing it fresh in zero weather, then there is no good reason why
they should not be gratified. Its feasibility is already established on
a small scale, and there seems to be no discernible limit to the demand
for a first-class article during the six months when the pastures are
barren. The farmer who has the capital can readily provide a barn that
will make his cows nearly as comfortable and healthy in winter as in
summer, and shelter all the food they need to keep up a constant flow of
rich milk. We have not attained, perhaps, all the information necessary
to secure the best rations for winter milking, yet we are approximating
toward that knowledge. Some think they have found in ensilage the one
thing needful. Yet, some of the parties dealing in gilt-edge butter
begin to complain of that made from rations consisting largely of
ensilage. We shall probably have to put down early cut hay with the
flavor of June grass in it as an essential part of the winter rations
for first-class butter. We doubt if the bouquet of the June made article
can be found elsewhere. Another ration will be Indian meal, our great
national cereal, which is abundant and cheap and likely to continue so.
Then we want green, succulent food with the dry fodder to sharpen the
appetite and help the digestion. This suggests roots as another ration.
We have carrots, mangolds and sugar beets; all easily raised, and
cheaply stored in barn cellars or pits. And from our own experience in