SIZE OF THE PERFECT COW. Ill 



Dr. "Wakefield. How long have you been trying that 

 experiment ? 



Mr. Ellsworth. I have been only two years. I have 

 no cow in milk yet, from my cross with the Guernsey. 



Mr. Sedgwick. The gentleman has stated to this Con- 

 vention his idea of a good milking-cow. He has given the 

 amount of butter per year which his cows give. He then 

 states that his cows are not to-day giving as much milk, or 

 making as much butter, as they did fifteen or twenty years 

 ago, if I understood him correctly. He furthermore states, 

 that his cows to-day are not so large as they were fifteen or 

 twenty years ago. Now, I will ask the gentleman wherein, 

 in his fifteen years' experience, he has bettered himself at all ? 



Mr. Ellsworth. If my past fifteen years' experience 

 has not given me a living and some profit, I don't know that 

 I am any better off ; but, if I am any better off than I was 

 fifteen years ago, I attribute it to my dairy, because that 

 has been my specialty. I don't know what your question 

 implies. 



Mr. Sedgwick. The question is, whether you have im- 

 proved the dairy cow from what it was fifteen years ago. 



Mr. Ellsworth. I have stated that I have followed it in 

 one direction, and I have made a very fine dairy cow. I 

 want to see if I cannot better it for the production of butter. 



Mr. Sedgwick. You have admitted that the yield of 

 butter per cow has depreciated in fifteen years. You say 

 you do not get as much milk, or make as much butter per 

 animal, as you did fifteen years ago. Then I asked if you 

 did not attribute that to the lack of size in your animal, and 

 you said you did not. 



Mr. Ellsworth. I don't know but you are right, sir. 



Dr. Wakefield. I understood Mr. Ellsworth to say that 

 he had been trying to breed for a smaller animal. Now, I 

 understand him to say that that smaller animal gives as good 

 milk, and gives as much in proportion to her size, as the 

 other. She cannot eat as much, and there is the advantage. 

 Is that right ? 



Mr. Ellsworth. Yes, sir : that is right. 



Dr. Wakefield. There is a gain just where he was aim- 

 ing to get it. He was aiming to get a smaller, more compact 

 animal, that should be large in proportion to the amount of 



