551 Transactions op the 



C0D8ecutive days, upon flush pasture, when fresh, as it is to furnish the 

 greatest possible yearly yield of butter. 



It is customary with many dairymen to carry their cows through the 

 Winter nearly dry, have them come in fresh in the Spring, and put them 

 on flush pasture. This puts a cow's system to its greatest strain just at 

 the season when her product is selling at its lowest figures; and as a 

 cow can yield but so much milk in a twelvemonth, this Spring forcing 

 must have the effect of causing a corresponding decrease in Winter, 

 when the cow's product is selling at high prices. But, in order to pro- 

 duce the largest possible yield of milk, the cows should be stinted so as 

 to drop their calves late in the Autumn. The cow's nature, responding 

 to the demands of maternity, furnishes sufficient stimulant for a flush flow 

 of milk during the Winter months, while the succulent grasses of Spring 

 and Summer prevent in a great measure the natural decrease as she ap- 

 proaches another parturition. If a cow holds her flesh well, she should 

 be milked to within a few days of calving. It is questionable if the 

 embryo calf is much of a drain upon the cow, as it requires but a little 

 over three ounces of nourishment in twenty-four hours for its support. 

 That cows when milked up to calving time sometimes fall off consider- 

 ably in the next season's yield, can be attributed correctly to a fact ob- 

 served by most dairymen, that a cow giving an exceedingly flush or long 

 yield one year sometimes rests herself the succeeding one, alternating 

 in the amount of her yield similarly to the habit of most fruit trees. 



To get the largest yield, a mixed system of soiling and pasturing 

 should be adopted; one acre of pasture to each cow for an early Spring, 

 Midsummer, and Winter bite to color the butter, Fall-sown rye for Spring 

 feeding, first cut of red clover to follow the rye, Spring-sown, barley and 

 outs mixed to follow the clover; corn fodder, sown in drills three feet 

 apart, earty in the Spring, and every succeeding second week until August, 

 to finish out the Summer feeding. For Winter feeding, corn fodder or 

 straw, cut in half-inch lengths, and mixed wet with mill feed, supple- 

 mented with a half peck of beets a day, makes the best feed when a profit- 

 able return of butter is required. A high grade of butter must be made 

 to pay the bills for this extra treat of beets. Cabbage and turnips are 

 almost certain to rob butter of that high aromatic flavor that secures 

 the highest prices in the market. They are few indeed who eat a whole 

 firkin of butter before detecting the presence of musty hay or stale 

 water in the cow's food. 



The milking should be done quietly, quickly, and thoroughly. Fe- 

 male milkers are necessary characters in a pastoral poem, or the picture 

 of a dairy scene, but in the cow stable men are much to be preferred, as 

 they can rest the bucket between their knees, and hold their own 

 against a fractious heifer. In training a heifer to milk, strength and 

 firmness are necessary, but, above all things, no violence should be used. 

 If Jersey heifers are handled before calving as they should be, there will 

 be no trouble in milking them. 



AS A THOROUGHBRED. 



We have thus far treated of the Jersey from a purely domestic and 

 commercial point of view; but it is as a thoroughbred that she enlists 

 our liveliest interest. Within the last year we have seen a few hundred 

 dollars' worth of butcher's meat, by the magic art of breeding, turned 

 into a princely fortune. If the same skill can be enlisted in behalf of 



