138 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



often exceed four per cent., while the proportion of butter varies 

 from one and four-fifths to eight per cent. It is a matter of prime 

 importance to butter makers that the cows have nutritious food, 

 and scarcely less so to cheese makers, inasmuch as both quantity 

 and quality suffer by want of it. 



Milk is liable to other changes than those produced by food, or 

 by any outside agencies subsequently to being drawn. In woman, 

 we find that anything which tends to irritate, or annoy her, or to 

 produce an exhibition of anger, produces, at the same time, serious 

 changes in, or partial destruction of her milk. We can observe 

 this with more distinctness in her case, but similar causes produce 

 like results with the lower animals ; and consequently every means 

 should be used to insure tranquillity in our milch cows. Every- 

 body knows that when a cow is driven rapidly on her way home to 

 be milked the milk is lessened, becomes hot, and is more liable to 

 become sour. That portion of food which supports respiration 

 and the animal heat is precisely the same which, if not so used up, 

 goes to form butter, and every cause which increases the rapidity 

 of breathing, diminishes the amount of butter which she might 

 otherwise yield. Cows should be driven as leisurely as they will 

 walk, never harrassed, annoyed or irritated by man, boy or dog. 

 Harsh treatment, of any and every sort, exerts a very injurious 

 effect upon the milk, and by reason of both mental and physical 

 causes. 



The operation of milking should be governed by the same gen- 

 eral rule ; use only kindness, and let the animal understand that 

 she is approached with none but friendly intentions. In ninety, 

 and perhaps ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, kicking, and all 

 other vicious tricks, originate in disregard of this rule. Milking 

 should be at regular intervals ; as soon as the proper time comes, 

 if the cow is not milked, she becomes restless. Let the parts be 

 cleaned thoroughly, and beginning slowly, let it soon be as rapid 

 as consists with gentleness, and complete. The " strippings" are 

 from five to fifteen times as rich in butter as the milk earlier drawn. 

 We cannot afford to lose this ; and what is of more consequence, 

 leaving some in the udder tends to decrease the secretion — poor 

 milkers dry up cows. The experience of a writer in the Boston 

 Cultivator is much to the point in this regard. He says : " When 

 I commenced farming I milked all my cows with my own hands, 

 and the result was that no one in town could boast of having made 



