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Wisconsin Dairymen's Association / Fortieth annual report of the Wisconsin Dairymen's Association : held at Beloit, Wis., November, 1911. Report of the proceedings, annual address of the president, and interesting essays and discussions relating to the dairy interests
(1912)
Kammer, Wm.
My methods of dairy farming, or another year's experience, pp. 108-114
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Page 109
Wisconsin Dairymen's Association. they ought to do. I then subscribed for Hoard's Dairyman which thught me how to take care of cows. At first I had some pasture for my cows but it wouldn't keep my cows in feed all summer and land being very high I considered it very dear feed. I then tried to raise the feed and feed It to my cows in the yard all summer, but I found that I could not have feed at all times for my cows In the summer. I read a good deal in the papers about silos and alfalfa and I built a silo 14x28 and sowed some alfalfa. Then I could feed my cows all right. I keep thirteen milch cows and one bull and six calves. I have three horses and about 100 chickens. For cash crops I raise three or four acres of sugar beets for the sugar factory, two acres of early potatoes and some rutabagas and late potatoes enough for our own use, and the rest of the land in alfalfa and corn. I raise these crops because I can have feed for my cows from the same land the same year. The sugar beets leave the tops and the early potatoes can be harvested early enough to plant the land to corn. Then how I feed my cows in summer, after the corn is put in the silo, I fit up some of the land and sow it to rye which will make early feed In spring. Then in the spring as early as possible I sow oats and peas on the land which had sugar beets the year before. That makes very good feed for my cows. After the oats and peas are off I have sown rutabagas and if the weather isn't favorable I sow It to millet or corn. In that way I have plenty of feed with my alfalfa and silage all summer. I take good care of my cows, handle them gently and raise my calves as well as I know how. I want them to grow big and strong. I always fattened about twenty hogs every year except this last year when corn Was too high in price to make money in hogs. I feed my skim milk to my calves and the rest to my cows. I manage to have my cows all come fresh In the fall. I can take care of them better in that way. I have a good warm barn with the King ventilation sys- tem and plenty of windows. DiscussioN. Mr. Glover: Mr. Kammer, what kind of corn do you plant for your silo? Mr. Kammer: I generally put the corn in early for my silo, and I have the kind of early strawberry corn, mixed red and white. Some- times I use flint corn, but I like the other better. I like my corn to ripen so there will be something to it. I don't like immature stuff. Mr. Glover: Do you think flint corn is good for silage? I - 109'
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