214 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



Before adverting to the premiums, your committee would sug- 

 gest to those who may enter cows hereafter at future shows, a 

 more systematic and detailed account, of feed given — exact 

 cost thereof, coupled with a succinct detail of time of milking, 

 pasturage, amount of root feed, corn-fodder, shorts, &c., and 

 especially any mode of treatment or feed to cows, believed by 

 them to be peculiar to themselves. 



A. Crocker, Chairman. 



WORCESTER WEST. 



From the Report of the Commiltee. 



Dairy Cows. — The committee on cows were very much dis- 

 appointed on going to the pens and not finding a larger number. 

 There were but five, and these were not entered for the society's 

 premiums, but merely for exhibition. Mr. Joshua Sanderson, of 

 Petersham, had two Devons and one native cow, all appearing 

 well. Mr. J. Bruce and Mr. Nathan H. Bacon, of Barre, each 

 had a cow on exhibition that showed good milking qualities, of 

 the Durham and native breeds. The committee were not fur- 

 nished with any statement from the exhibitors, to show the 



observer, were once small, angular, and scarcely desirable in any point of view. 

 The improvement has been equally as great in the Durhams, as well as in sheep 

 and swine. The weight of mutton has more than doubled in the London market 

 within the last hundred years. 



I am satisfied that the largest number of fine milch cows is produced by a cross 

 of our common stock with the Durham short-horn blood. They are symmetrical, 

 good feeders, gentle, yield a good flow of milk, and continue it sufficiently 

 late — for I do not, as a general thing, think it desirable that a cow should con- 

 tinue to give milk until the time of calving. 



With regard to your other question, whether it may be made profitable for the 

 farmer to raise roots to feed to his milch cows, I am not in the least at a loss for. an 

 opinion. I fed eight cows one winter on the best hay and three quarts of meal 

 each per day. The following winter I fed the same cows on hay cut on the same 

 ground, without meal or grain of any kind, but gave each cow per day half a 

 bushel of roots, carrots, beets, turnips and parsnips, and obtained just as many 

 again cans of milk, of equal capacity, as I did when I fed the meal, the cows com- 

 ing in iibout the same time as on the previous year. 



I should be glad to write more, but have not the leisure at present. 



Very truly yours, SIMON BROWN. 



A. Crocker, Esq., Fitchburg. 



