Food of the Toivn-fcd Coiu 



155 



In another shed, where fifty-eight are being fed, 

 seventeen of which are freshly calved cows, and the 

 rest are in al)out half milk, the consumption is 2 tons 

 mangolds, 12 trasses of hay, 7 trasses of straw (all 

 chafed and pulped and mixed), 56 lb. of meal, and 36 

 lb. of cake. This amounts to about 80 lb. of man- 

 golds, and 16 lb. of mixed hay and straw (with 3 or 4 

 lb. of meal and cake to a few of those most nearly dry 

 or in heaviest milk). The seventeen cows in full milk 

 get 13 lb. of hay, 76 lb. of mangolds, 2 lb. of meal, 

 and 2 lb. of cake a-piece, costing at current prices 

 rather under 2s. a-piece. They gave at first on the 

 average 2 barn gallons (= 16 quarts) a-piece, which 

 are worth, delivered in London, 3s. 4d. 



I believe that, though productive of a great quan- 

 tity of poor milk, distillery wash is not by any means 

 a common article of food in London dairies. Its re- 

 putation as a washy food may, however, have hin- 

 dered my being told of its use. There is nothing, I 

 lieve, that more excites the milk secretion, and when 

 given fresh along with other substantial food, no ob- 

 jection can be made to its use. It is, however, ob- 

 jected to the use of distillery wash, and in a less 

 degi-ee to that of grains, that the milk derived from 

 their use as a food needs to be consumed at once, as it 

 will "turn" more rajDidly than the milk of grass-fed 

 cows. I know of no direct experiment on this point, 

 and can only refer to the impression which some milk 

 dealers have that this is so. 



In so far as the feeding of the cow belongs to this 

 part of the general subject of town dairies — and of 

 course it is the most important part of it — the only 

 remark that need be made after what has been already 

 said, is that tlie food must be always good of its kind, 

 and regularly and punctually given. Faulty food soon 

 shews itself in the quality of the milk ; and irregularity 

 in feeding or any other disturbance of so sensitive a 

 creature as a milcli cow is sure to be followed by a 

 diminished yield of milk. Swedes and common 

 turnips taint the milk ; and if given at all should be 

 used either in small quantity with other food, or, what 

 is better, cooked in a hot mash. Here, too, attempts 

 are made, by using saltpetre in the water with which 

 the cans are washed, and by putting a little in with 

 the milk itself when they are filled, to get rid of any 

 taint which it may possess. I have given cabbages 

 for months together to upwards of lOO cows without 

 any particular cai'e being taken to keep spoiled or 

 rotten leaves out of the manger, but I have never 

 found the milk tainted by them. To steam food 

 which has any aroma belonging to it communicable to 

 the milk is of course, as already said, the best way to 

 make it harmless. But though I have been over sixty 

 London and suburban cowhouses, I know of none 

 where cow food is steamed or cooked, excepting only 

 Mr Dan cock's shed at Brompton, antl there the 

 steaming goes merely to the manufacture of a gruel to 

 be tlirown over an uncooked food, as hay, chaff, or 

 grains. It is nevertheless certain that steaming food, 

 ■wherever labour is not very costly, or where the exist- 



ing hands have time to spare for the pui-pose without 

 interfering with, their efficiency elsewhere, improves 

 its nutritiveness, and may be confidently recom- 

 mended. 



But the thing of all others, so far as my experience 

 has gone, which is most important in order to the 

 sweetness of the milk is, that the water given to the 

 cows be clean and good. 



One of the things which most strikes a stranger w ho 

 first enters a London cowhouse during winter is the 

 warmth in which the cows are kept. Experience has 

 proved that this, too, has an important influence on 

 their productiveness. They stand very thickly on the 

 ground— one to eveiy 30 to 36 square feet ; the 

 %\'indows are closed and matted, and no thorough 

 draught allowed ; and thus the shed is warmed. 

 There is generally room enough overhead, and per- 

 haps a tiled roof, which allows ample ventilation ; and 

 thus, where the shed is kept tolerably clean, the air is 

 sweet enough, as well as warm. 



Very little litter or other bedding is used. I have 

 been over large suburban cowsheds where none what- 

 ever is used. The cows stand so close to each other 

 that they cannot get across, and thus the dung and 

 urine fall from them into the gutter behind them, from, 

 which it is cleared twice or thrice a day, and the lair 

 — an earthen floor — is thus kept dry. At the Lodge 

 Farm wa have used sawdust. At present 8 cwt. is 

 the daily allowance in two sheds contaming eighty- 

 five co%A's, and there were exactly 21 tons of dung re- 

 moved from these two sheds last week, being 3 

 tons daily. Most of the urine runs into a tank, 

 only a portion of it being retained in the litter 

 that is used. Two or three bushels of sawdust are, 

 in the first place, put under every cow, and there- 

 after one bushel daily is sufficient, as much being 

 daily taken as fast it gets soiled. The quantities 

 amount to about 1 1 lb. per cow added, and 80 lb. of 

 dung per cow taken ; so that we collect about 70 lb. 

 per diem of the actual fceces of the animal. I may on 

 this refer to a letter received twelve years ago from 

 Mr Telfer, of the Canning Park Farm, near Ayr, who 

 kept 48 of the .small Ayrshire cows for a butter dairy. 

 He found that these cows yielded 60 lb. of dung and 

 1 8 lb. of urine every twenty-four hours. Taking their 

 smaller size into account, this agrees very fairly with 

 our experience at Lodge Farm. He adds that the 

 cows yielding most milk, at the same time yielded the 

 most dung and urine, which is not surprising, seeing 

 that these are, in fact, the debris of a manufacture, and 

 must be greater or less according to the quantity of 

 raw material which passes through the machine. Mr 

 Telfer's cows lay on a cocoa-nut matting, their dung 

 and urine falling into an accurately-made girtter, which 

 was cleaned out perfectly by a single draw of a drag 

 made to fit the groove. In London cow-houses the 

 rougli causewayed floors are cleaned out with besom 

 and spade into a dung-pit, \\\\\c\\ the sanitaiy inspector 

 requires to be emptied at intervals ; and the gutters in 

 well-managed houses are washed down from the pail. 



