A gifted book on animal husbandry provides thoughtful reflections for columnist Sue Bowman.
A gifted book on animal husbandry provides thoughtful reflections for columnist Sue Bowman. Pig Feeder
Animal husbandry — now there’s an old-fashioned sounding term we don’t hear every day. A short definition of it, according to the freedictionary.com, is “breeding and caring for farm animals.”
A friend of mine who knows my love of history in general and agriculture-related history specifically, gifted me with a hard-cover book on animal husbandry titled, “Manual of Farm Animals.”
Copyrighted 112 years go in 1911, this 545-page tome was written by Merritt W. Harper. Harper is identified on the title page as “assistant professor of animal husbandry in the New York State College of Agriculture at Cornell University.”
The book’s subtitle helps explain why this manual is so lengthy; it is called “A practical guide to the choosing, breeding and keeping of horses, cattle, sheep and swine.” That sure covers a lot of territory.
Of course, once upon a time, this book could’ve proved to be a real bargain because it did cover such a broad range of subject matter. Up until the last few decades when specialization in a single species has become the norm, many farms had a little of this and a little of that.
For instance, my dad raised dairy cows, beef cattle, hogs and chickens — albeit all in fairly small numbers by today’s standards. The Manual of Farm Animals might’ve been the only reference book he ever needed. Although it would’ve already needed updating 35 years later, when in 1946, my parents moved onto the farm where I still live.
With the 2023 All-American Dairy Show starting today in Harrisburg, I thought I’d peruse the Harper manual’s chapters VIII, IX, X and XI. These old-school chapter designations are also known as chapters 8, 9, 10 and 11 for those of us who are a bit rusty on our Roman numerals, like me, who looked them up to double check.
These chapters deal with choosing, feeding, breeding and care and management of dairy cattle. I was curious if there were any obvious differences in the “right way” of doing dairy back in the early 20th century and the current wisdom on such matters.
Since these chapters encompassed 89 pages, I must admit I didn’t read every page. In full disclosure, I mostly just looked at the pictures and charts, but found plenty of interest there.
One photo that captured my attention showed a wooden stave silo under construction. The caption says, “This silo, 16 feet in diameter and 30 feet high, was completed (using farm labor) at a cost of one dollar for each ton capacity.” Capacity-wise, a nearby chart shows a silo of these dimensions would have a capacity of 119 tons, requiring 11.9 acres of corn to fill it, based on 10 tons per acre.
The amount that should be fed daily is shown as 1,340 (presumably pounds), which is supposed to lower the surface of the silage 2 inches per day.
Interestingly, I found no mention made about the dangers of silo gas, even though the narrative made mention of “a lad who spends his time” inside the silo to assure the silage is “well packed, keeping it level and thoroughly tramped.”
The section on the dairy barn opens by noting, “The dairy cow is perhaps the most difficult of farm animals to stable properly.” It goes on to emphasize “Sunlight in abundance should enter the dairy barn. Sunlight is nature’s disinfectant.” One has to think Merritt Harper would be pleased by how open many of today’s newer dairy barns are.
A chart showing six hand-drawn rows of teeth, from a 15-month-old cow up through a 10-year-old cow, is intended to help determine the age of the dairy animal. This implies to me there wasn’t a lot of breed registration going on back in 1911, as that paperwork would’ve eliminated the need for checking teeth to ascertain the dairy animal’s age.
A black and white photo of a mature cow with horns is identified as a Guernsey named “Dolly Dimples” from North Easton, Massachusetts. The caption notes: “She gave 18,459 pounds of milk containing 907 pounds of fat,” which is stated as being “world’s record for the breed.” Would that still be a record? I’m suspecting not.
Cow diets apparently used to be quite different once upon a time. In a paragraph titled “Order of Supplying Feed,” it notes some food can give odors to the milk. It goes on to state, “In the case of cabbage, turnips and the like, it is perhaps best they be fed after milking.” Sounds more like goat fare than milk cow dining to me.
A chart on the average yearly production per cow in the United States shows that in 1850, the output per cow was 1,436 pounds of milk and 61 pounds of butter. By 1900, those figures had more than doubled to 3,646 pounds of milk and 155 pounds of butter. I’m betting today’s dairy animals are well beyond those figures.
Another eye-catching photo shows a white-clad man dumping a bucket of milk into a contraption that is apparently ice-cooled with the milk then directed into one of two milk cans situated below the cooling device. The caption reads: “Milk cooled immediately after drawing will keep sweet much longer than otherwise.”
I can only say, “You’ve come a long way dairy!”
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