CROSS FOR MILK AND BUTTER. 121 



Mr. Sedgwick. Can you give this meeting the average 

 amount of milk per cow per annum, and the average pounds 

 of butter per annum, for the whole herd, for a whole year ? 



Mr. Roberts. I can give it only from recollection. I 

 think one } 7 ear the average yield of our herd of Jerseys was 

 two hundred and forty-nine pounds, taking them young and 

 old together. Another year I think it was two hundred and 

 fifty-Dine pounds. I think another year it was two hundred 

 and seventy pounds. I am giving these figures from recol- 

 lection merely. I have it all on my books at home. We 

 have some Jerseys that give eight thousand pounds of milk 

 in a year : we have other Jerseys that do not give two thou- 

 sand. The average I cannot tell you from recollection. 

 We have Jerseys in our herd whose milk we have set by 

 itself thirty days, — several of them, — and they have run 

 all the way from thirty-five pounds to sixty-two. I often set 

 a Jersey cow's milk a week, and reset the milk of some cows 

 the same week every year. For instance, I set a particular 

 cow's milk the first week in November. Others I test when 

 I think they are in their best condition, and then again, 

 when I think the} r are in their poorest condition. I have 

 tested two-year-old heifers that have made ten pounds and 

 a half a week ; I have tested heifers that were but eighteen 

 months old, that made nine pounds a week ; and so it goes 

 from one amount to another. 



Mr. Waterman (of Williamstown). I am a farmer on a 

 small scale, and I will state to j'ou very briefly my experi- 

 ence with cows in making butter. In 1874 I had a cow that 

 was half Jersey and half Short-horn. The Short-horn was 

 brought from Mr. Thome's stock on the Hudson River. 

 This cow made, within eleven months, five hundred and 

 twenty-eight pounds and three ounces of butter, and fur- 

 nished the milk for a family of from six to eight persons 

 during the year. I have a cow now that is from the same 

 stock, a half-sister, which, when three and four years old, 

 made four hundred and six pounds and six ounces of butter, 

 and furnished milk for the same family, from the sixteenth 

 day of September, 1875, to the sixteenth day of September, 

 1876. As far as my experience goes, I am satisfied that a 

 cross of a full-blooded Jersey on the male side with the Dur- 

 ham, is the best cross we can get for milk and for butter. 



