DAIRY MEE;TING. 69 



garden and he put her back into the pasture. The next day she 

 got out again and the third day he whipped her, and that night 

 he could not get any milk. The next morning he could not get 

 any milk and it was the third morning before that cow would 

 respond again to his kneading of the udder. The farmer had 

 simply lost the confidence of that cow. She did not feel right 

 towards him, and somehow unconsciously she closed her muscles 

 in such a way that the milk would not run down. This perhaps 

 can be appreciated more readily if one understands the structure 

 of the udder. Above the teat is a small milk cistern holding half 

 a pint, and above that there are little canals or ducts, which 

 divide and subdivide, and at every division there is what is called 

 a sphincter muscle. The cow has a certain control over these 

 muscles. When anything occurs out of the ordinary she closes 

 those muscles and shuts off her milk, — not all of it but some of 

 it. Now when you ill-treat a cow or when you fail to milk her 

 when she is expecting to be milked, or when you fail to feed her 

 when she is looking for feed, or when you in any way disturb 

 the nervous condition of the cow, you do something to her 

 which causes her to unconsciously hold up a part of her milk. 

 That is the tendency. And so that is a reason for kindness and 

 care and regularity in the management of cows. Then, too, 

 from this structure of the udder we may learn something of the 

 reason why it is so important to knead the udder of the cow a 

 little when you finish milking. These little ducts are crooked, 

 and some milk lodges in the pockets. If the udder is kneaded 

 or manipulated towards the end of milking the yield may be 

 increased slightly both in quality and quantity. The principle 

 is something like squeezing a sponge. 



I might say just a word about the breeding of cows. We 

 must breed better cows, they do not exist today in sufficient 

 numbers. The records of herds show that at least one-third 

 of the cows are kept at a loss, and that not more than 50 per 

 cent are worthy of reproducing themselves. We must keep 

 records and select the best individuals in our herds for mothers 

 of the next generation. I do not know whether you realize how 

 short the life of a cow is. The last census states that the aver- 

 age period of usefulness of the cow for the country is six years. 

 Coming in at two, she is in the herd four years. We seem to 



