PRODUCTION OF MILK 137 



Mr. Gould. The very best herd of milkers I have ever seen is 

 one kept at the Lunatic Asylum at Brattleboro', Vt. The dams 

 of the present race of cows kept there were carefully selected by 

 Gov. Holbrook, who is one of the best and most intelligent farmers 

 I ever met, from what is termed, erroneously, native stock. lie 

 had been familiar with the cattle of that region, had kept the track 

 of the best milkers, and selected none but those that were both the 

 daughters and grand-daughters of superior milkers. With these, 

 he selected a ball from Mr. Thome's Jierd, containing strong strains 

 of the " Princess" blood. He has bred from those cows, and they 

 are the largest milkers I have ever seen among grade cows. 



Mr. Goodale. My impression is that if you seek for cows 

 giving the greatest amount of milk, you will still find them among 

 large sized grade Shorthorns, and yet Ayrshires have done very 

 well indeed. I had an Ayrshire which weighed, within a few days 

 of the time of trial, as she came in. from pasture towards night, 

 (which was the only time I ever weighed her) 815 lbs.; that cow 

 gave me 49 lbs. of milk daily for a while, or at the rate of her live 

 weight in milk in seventeen days. She afterwards went to Massa- 

 chusetts and may be one to which reference has been made. Her 

 only fault was, and it is one that I have found occasionally among 

 Ayrshires, that she was a hard milker. 



The gentleman spoke of the Jerseys as being nervous. I have 

 never noticed that peculiarity with our Jerseys, except among the 

 males, which are very apt to become vicious at an earlier age than 

 other bulls. The cows are usually very gentle. Some trouble in 

 respect to nervousness has been observed among our Ayrshires. 

 Wherever they receive such treatment as cows should have, they 

 are perfectly gentle, and there need be no difficulty ; but if they 

 are treated as too many milch cows are, they develop a degree of 

 nervousness and it is nothing to be wondered at. 



Mr. Percival of Kennebec. I have listened with a great deal 

 of pleasure to the remarks of Mr. Gold and others, and they only 

 confirm me in the opinion that different people in different localities 

 want different things, and that people in different localities come 

 to different conclusions. I agree with Mr. Gold in the main, but 

 I should take some exceptions to his statements, perhaps on 

 account of my limited knowledge. 



Every man should possess intelligence enough, in making his 

 selection of animals, to know what he wants; what animal is 

 adapted to his locality ; what he wants to produce, (I think that 



