THE COWS FOR MILK. 135 



quarts a year. Out at Syracuse, N.Y., a milk association 

 receives the total product of sixteen hundred cows ; and their 

 record for three years shows an average annual yield of 

 twenty-three hundred and eighty quarts per cow ; one owner 

 of ten cows averaged thirty-seven hundred and sixty-six 

 quarts per cow, and another obtained thirty-three hundred 

 and thirty-nine quarts apiece from forty cows kept in one 

 herd. These animals were of all races, breeds and mix- 

 tures. Such cows are worth having, and the beauty of it is 

 we can all have them. And it is not necessary to buy. It is 

 safer and better for farmers to raise their own milch cows, on 

 butter-making farms particularly. Judicious breeding, rais- 

 ing the heifer calves of the best cows only, and weeding out 

 the old ones, will change the entire herd in a few years. 



One of the most common mistakes made is that of keep- 

 ing cows till too old. Few can be economically kept after 

 eight years of age. Old animals increase the average cost of 

 keeping the herd, decrease the average butter product, and 

 injure the quality. The English dairy farmers understand 

 this matter well, and it is a rare thing to find milch cows in 

 their herds over eight years old. It may be said that this is 

 only a theory for improving milking-stock. On the contrary, 

 it is a most practical method, which every man can pursue 

 who keeps one or more cows, and has facilities for raising a 

 calf; and it renders certain a steady improvement in the 

 quality and value of the cattle, without any considerable 

 outlay. 



Here is an example. In 1845 a man commenced dairy- 

 fanning upon the Schohariekill in Greene County, New York. 

 He was not a farmer, but, on the contrary, had been a tanner 

 in that same county for twenty years. Having cleared the 

 land of its hemlock, he found it formed a fine sod : so, when 

 his tannery was closed for lack of bark, he stocked his land 

 with milch cows, and began to make butter. For ten years 

 he followed the beaten track, obtaining about a hundred and 

 twenty-five pounds of butter a year from each of his fifty 

 cows. Then it occurred to him that this was not enough ; 

 and he proceeded to systematically improve his herd by just 

 the methods above recommended, keeping an exact account 

 with each cow, and of his whole farming * operations. He 

 had only the common " native " stqck of the country ; and the 



