FARMERS' INSTITUTES. ' 131 



Dk. 



To extra cost milking 850 00 



To costage of milk . 25 00 



To service of bull 25 00 



Interest on difference in cost 19 00 



Total $119 00 



Profits on eleven cows $488 50 



Profits on sheep - - - 280 00 



In favor of cows $208 50 



I have in the commencement of this article adverted to the subject of manure. 

 Let us revert to it again. One hundred sheep, with ordinary care, will produce 

 forty loads of manure. Eleven cows, stabled and bedded will produce eighty 

 loads of equal value, if the cows are fed a little meal, and the manure piled 

 under shelter. Although difficult to place a money value upon this eighty loads 

 above the former forty loads, yet it is a consideration worthy of careful atten- 

 tion. In the older portion of our country, many farms are composed entirely 

 of tillable land. In many of these fields the virgin soil is exhausted, and these 

 which we depended upon in years past have disappointed iis, and we feel that 

 we must by some means renovate them. Of course other means may be em- 

 ployed, as by clover, or the fattening of cattle, or the u?e of foreign fertilizers. 

 I refer to it only as a difference between sheep and cows. 



1. Abortion and failure to be ia milk, objections to the production of milk. 

 In nearly all herds of eleven cows from two to five, are, in spite of the utmost 

 care on the part of the herdsman, farrow. If these are cows of ordinary or 

 inferior value, they may be readily fattened and their place made good or more 

 than good. But it often happens that they are the most choice cows of the 

 herd, and rather than part with them the farmer prefers to suffer the loss. Let 

 us suppose the average loss from this source be three cows, the actual loss hi 

 milk would be equal to about two-elevenths of the income of the herd or $110.44. 

 This is a loss which has always been felt in times past, and will certainly be 

 felt in time to come to a greater or less extent. Let no one go into this business 

 thinking to avoid it. 



Second objection. Trouble of milking. This, to many a farmer, is the 

 "lion in the way" of dairying. Few of us have any surplus lielji available, and 

 the morning milking has to be done by men who would otherwise be at the plow 

 or other important farm work ; and at night, long before sunset, the farmer 

 himself, or the man, has to hasten home to milk the cows. The morning hour 

 must be taken from the farm work, or else from the farmer's sleej:), and we all 

 know how dear to the weary frame is a little more folding of the hands to sleep 

 in the cool of a summer's morning, and how reluctantly we leave the couch and 

 seek the yard ; and then we dread the thoughts of an hour's exercise at milking 

 after a hard day's work at the plow or in the harvest field. 



And then, perhaps one or two in the herd are restive and shy, and now and 

 then extend the hinder hoof with a yank, and hinder the exercise of the caudel 

 extremity with more than ordinary emphasis. Flies are thick, and gnats and 

 mosquitoes are bloodthirsty. Again, one or more of the cows have been reasoned 

 with by a former owner with such arguments as the stool, or clubs and bits of 



