08 THIRTIETH ANNUAL REPORT OF THE 



people are apt to think. I once heard a Maine dairyman saj 

 that in his judgment the best thing- on a dairy farm was a 

 dead dog, and that a coat of whitewash in the barn was a 

 close second to it. A dog once thoroughly killed never again 

 dogs cows, and thus one of the most common sources of bovine 

 agitation is removed. Milk-making is a nervous function and 

 in proportion as a cow becomes excited, in proportion as the 

 nerve force which should be concentrated upon milk making, 

 is distracted therefrom by any cause, dogging, horn-flies, 

 abuse, noise, etc., in that proportion there is likelihood — al- 

 most certainty ■ — that the milk flow will be influenced. If I re- 

 member right, our good friend from the west, tried a few 

 years ago an experiment in this line. I believe Gov. Hoard 

 was the first man to urge that a cow be treated as if she was 

 a lady; but once upon a time he abused a cow in order to 

 know whether or not it would affect the quality of the milk. 

 She was milked in part, then with a large pin she was 

 raked across the udder and the milking continued. 



Gov. Hoard: (interrupting) If you will allow me: The 

 experiment was made in this way. The cow was milked 

 about half through and a sample of the latter portion of the 

 milk was set aside; then a heavy pin was raked across her 

 flank. She made a jump into the manger. She was a great 

 pet of mine, and she looked around at me as much as- to say, 

 "you did'nt do that, who did?" I then finished milking and 

 took a sample of that milk. There was a difference of fifteen 

 per cent in the amount of butter fat in the two halves of the 

 milk. I took a sample immediately as we closed the first half, 

 and then another at the beginning of the last half. I did not 

 wait to get through the stripping. There was a difference 

 of fifteen per cent in the amount of fat eliminated by the 

 nervous equation. And a man who does not treat the little 

 mother in a motherly way, as he would treat the mother of 

 the family, who does not treat her in the same way as a moth- 

 er treats herself, makes a mistake. 



Prof. Hills. I am glad to have the governor tell the story 

 for me. We get it thus at first hand. Another experiment 

 in the same line: One of our western experimenters fired 

 blank cartridges in front of the cows immediately before 

 milking. The explosions decidedly affected the quality of 

 the milk. Anything that tends to make a cow nervously ex- 

 cited will be apt to effect the milking function and, as a rule, 

 unfavorably. In our own experience an Ayrshire, temporarily 

 in new and noisy surroundings, increased the quality of the 

 milk without decreasing the flow, while another Ayrshire at 

 the same time, treated in exactly the same manner, did pre- 

 cisely the reverse and shrank half in quality and a quarter in 



