58—Lancaster Farming.- Saturday. June 26,1976
iuernsey cattle have been the business, pride,
and joy at “Walnut Grove- Farm” since 1907. Mr,
and Mrs. Ferguson sold their milking herd last Ijjill,
Bicentennial farm
[Continued from Pace 67]
last Fall, they have 60 heifers and are going back into the
dairy business.
The Guernsey herd was started in 1907 by Ferguson’s
father, Roy H., a charter member of the Lancaster County
Guernsey Club. Prior to the decision to go for an all Guernsey
herd, the family had a mixed assortment of several breeds
and crossbreds.
Guernseys were the cows to have, Ferguson explained,
because of the butter their milk yielded. The market of the
time emphasized butter, not milk. According to Ferguson,
the breed first got a strong foothold in the Philadelphia area
where wealthy families had them for status symbols and tax
benefits, besides making butter.
The Guernsey herd at Walnut Grove started with two
heifers, and a bull who was a full brother to “one of the
greatest cows in the Guernsey breed,” Ferguson said with a
note of pride in his voice. She was “Nella Jay 4th,” who had a
phenomenal record of 20,709 pounds of milk and 1019 pounds
of fat to her credit. “Mention ‘Nella Jay’ and the prices at
sales would go way up,” Ferguson
Disaster struck in 1930 when the entire herd by now very
much “on the map” in Guernsey circles was wiped out by
Bang’s disease. They started up again, and by 1933 had
acquired a top bull from Florham Farm whose dam was the
first two-year old of the breed to check in with more than 900
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but kept 60 heifers, a few of which they're
examining here.
pounds of butterfat in one lactation. Some of his daughters in
the Ferguson herd milked 60 pounds of milk per day, which
.-was quite remarkable at the time.
The Fergusons shipped what was known as “A” milk
approximately 50 years ago. It had to be at the Oxford
railroad station by 6 a.m., which meant that the dairyman
had to get up mighty early in the morning to meet the train on
time. Ihe cans were hauled to Oxford on a wagon which was
fitted with an old automobile windshield for some protection,
from inclement weather.
Although Guernseys have dominated Walnut Grove Farm
in more recent years, Ferguson’s father also had a sizable
apiary and chicken business on the place. Not one to be left
behind by advancing technologies, the elder Ferguson was
[Continued on Page 73]
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