University of Virginia Library

Dairying.

THIS county offers great advantages for dairying, chief
among which are:—

1st. Its numerous springs of pure, cold freestone water,
which, with their running streams make it difficult to lay off
a 30 or 40 acre field without including running water within
its bounds; and afford on every farm a choice of locations for
a dairy-house, where an abundance of that first requisite, pure
cold water, can be had.

2nd. The great variety of nutritious grasses, either indigenous
to the soil, or which can be readily produced; amongst
which grow, spontaneously, the blue grasses (poa compressa
and pratensis) and white clover on the hills; herd grass or
red-top on the bottoms, and ceap grass and foxtail, almost
everywhere; while orchard grass, red clover and timothy are
easily produced, with a proper preparation, on both hills and

bottoms. These very best of pasture and hay grasses do so
well that our farmers have not troubled themselves to propagate
the new and foreign grasses of which we read so much,
and whose seeds have been so generally distributed by the
United States Agricultural Department.

3rd. The rolling, undulating surface causes an almost entire
absence of stagnant, impure water, or unsavory marsh grasses,
which so often injuriously effect the quality of dairy products
from cows running in the pastures.

4th. The comfort of the cows is greatly promoted by the
plenteous shade afforded by the numerous detached trees and
wood lots, which good taste, and, perhaps love of personal
comfort, caused our ancestors to leave in suitable spots when
clearing away the forests.

5th. The mild short winters, during which the thermometer
falls to zero not more than once or twice in a decade, and in
which the dairyman must be ready to fill his ice-house at the
first two-inch freeze, or he runs the risk of having to do without
this almost indispensable accessory during the next summer.
And yet with ordinary diligence, and by selecting a
suitable location for an ice-pond, our octogenarian farmers
will tell you that they have never failed to secure a sufficient
supply of this planter's luxury and dairyman's necessity.

The mild temperature of the winters renders much less
costly stables necessary than are needed in the Northern
States, and the cows are generally allowed, except in very
stormy weather, to run during the day in a lot where they can
pick over cornstalks, &c., and have access to wheat straw and
plenteous spring water at its normal temperature of 55° to 60°.
That this climate and mode of treatment is good for them is
shown by the fact that there has been no epidemic or general
disease among the cattle of Albemarle in the recollection of
the oldest inhabitant. Pleuro-pneumonia and all that class
of diseases are only known to us by name.

6th. Its nearness and convenience of access to good markets.
The city of Charlottesville and the University of Virginia,
both in the centre of the county, consume in the shape

of fresh milk the product of the largest dairies which are in
their vicinity. The smaller and more remote farm dairies
produce butter which meets a ready sale to regular customers
at these places, at prices ranging from twenty to forty cents
per pound, according to season and quality; hence there is
but little shipped out of the county, in spite of the exceptional
facilities for so doing afforded by the numerous trains on the
two great thoroughfares of travel, which bisect the county,
and the railway, which skirts its entire southern border, placing
the markets of Washington 4 hours distant, Baltimore 5
hours, Richmond 3 hours, Norfolk 5, Lynchburg 3, and the
Virginia Springs from 3 to 5 hours distant. The prices for
butter are low in all these markets in summer, but contracts
for a regular supply of fresh cream are readily made at very
remunerative prices. The dairies too remote from the stations
to ship cream, find winter their most profitable season,
as the demand is brisk for choice fresh butter at from thirty
to forty cents per pound from October until June. While the
abundant supply of hay and corn ensilage that can be easily
and cheaply secured, make the feeding of the cows a comparatively
easy matter.

The product of a dairy of good common cows fresh in the
fall, will average about three-fourths of a pound of butter per
head per day during these eight months of good prices, if
well fed in stalls, night and morning, on hay and ensilage,
sprinkled with a mixture of corn meal and wheat bran. The
ratio, allowing cost for the bran, and a liberal price for the
corn, hay and ensilage, will be worth about seventeen cents
per head per day, leaving the manure, and from five and a
half to thirteen cents a day profit on each cow, besides giving
a home market for the corn and provender. And most important
of all, a means is thus afforded for improving the land
and increasing its capacity for carrying cows, and at the same
time returning a fair profit to the farmer. With cows of the
butter breed, more butter could be made from the same feed
and a larger profit realized. Take the Edgmont farm, of 300
acres arable land, as an example of what can be accomplished

by this system, with the common native cattle. When the
present owner moved on, about seven years ago, it was so run
down and unproductive that only by close economy and the
help of some bought forage, were five horses, two cows, ten
young cattle and a few sheep, kept the first year.

The owner went into dairying and beef feeding, only buying
a few tons of bran, and feeding everything made on the
farm except wheat, carefully saving and applying all the resulting
manure. He has, from this farm, comfortably maintained
his family of six, educated four children, paid a debt
incurred for stock and implements, and run the farm up so
that he keeps twenty cows, forty head of young cattle, sixteen
or eighteen horses and colts, a few sheep, feeds fifteen or
twenty beeves every winter, and still has often a surplus of
grain and hay for market, because the crops of these outrun
the increase of the stock and the feeding capacity of his often
enlarged stables. And yet this branch of profitable farming
is comparatively ignored. Except on the farms that furnish
milk to Charlottesville and the University, winter dairying, as
a systematic business, hardly exists; and, except in a casual
way, no butter is shipped from the county where the markets
are best, and a large part of the county supply is even brought
from abroad.

The prevalence of onion or garlic in our lands is alleged
by many as the reason why they do not go into dairying.
While this is a serious disadvantage, it is not in reality as
great a one as it would seem.

The garlic makes an early and rapid growth, which ceases
about the last of May, when the button appears and the stalk
becomes tough and woody, so that well-fed cows reject it.
If, then, the cows are kept in a lot and fed green rye, clover,
&c., until June 1st, they will do nearly as well as if on pasture;
while the grass will make such vigorous growth as to
afford plenteous pasturage during any dry June weather, and
by having its roots well covered will not be apt to receive
injury from the hot suns of July and August, as is often the
case when the pasture is grazed too bare and close. An ample

supply of clover and rye can be secured by keeping a small
lot, near the cow-lot, well manured and sowing it in alternate
sections with rye; followed with clover, an acre of good rye,
cutting to begin when the heads appear, should give twenty
cows one good feed a day for a week or more.

More skilled dairymen, more cows, and more care to secure
the best butter breeds and strains, would prove a great advantage
to the dairying interest of the county, as it would make
coöperative butter and cheese establishments feasible, and thus
by a division of labor increase productions and profits.

Milk sold in 1880 to Butter and Cheese Factories, 24,305
gallons; Butter made in 1880, 222,186 pounds.