TREATMENT OF THE COW. 261 



food suited to the wants of the cow must be given, and care 

 must be taken to provide against the falling off of this supply- 

 as the pastures dry up. It requires a certain amount of food 

 to support nature. All above this generally goes to make milk, 

 or beef if the animal is not in milk. The cow, therefore, 

 should not be allowed to shrink her milk early in the season for 

 the lack of a sufficient amount of food to make it. What that 

 supply shall be every farmer has a preference. I plant southern 

 and sweet corn and cabbages as well as sow millet, grain and 

 flat turnips, endeavoring to have them succeed each other as 

 they are required by the cows. I have never, except in two 

 instances, during the past fifteen years, put in a soiling crop, 

 without having a special call for it before winter. These so- 

 called green crops, I always feed in the barn, with the excep- 

 tion of the flat turnips which I pull and strew on the grass 

 ground, immediately after milking. Turnips fed in this way 

 will impart no unpleasant flavor to the milk or butter. 



The most satisfactory way of salting cows, with me, is to 

 give about a dessert spoonful each morning, while giving green 

 or summer feed. This amount they will always eat with good 

 relish. In winter, instead of salt alone, I feed twice a week 

 with salt, plaster and wood ashes mixed in equal parts, a table- 

 spoonful at least. 



MILKING. 



It is of the greatest importance to the dairyman that the 

 milking should be done in a proper manner and at regular 

 intervals. If the cow is kindly treated she will give down her 

 milk with pleasure ; but if roughly used she will hold up some 

 part of it, and the quantity will gradually diminish till it will 

 hardly pay for milking. Everything should therefore be calm 

 and quiet about the milking stable. The milker should sit 

 down to the cow with the pail in his left hand ; commence 

 brushing the udder and teats with the right, carefully, for a few 

 seconds. In this way the udder and teats will become clean, 

 and the cow will be ready to give down her milk and no time 

 will be lost. Then commence the operation by shutting the 

 upper part of the hand close to the udder, gradually closing it 

 towards the end of the teats ; repeating without any twitching 

 or jerking until clean. 



In summer nights the cows may be stabled or allowed to run 



