THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



469 



that "The best sort is the large Dutch cow, that 

 brings two calves at one birth, and gives, ordi- 

 narily, two gallons of milk at one meal." 



Then as to feediin; the cow. As, two centuries 

 since, her owners had only grass, hay, and corn, 

 they were used to kill their cattle for beef at Mar- 

 tinmas ; and those cows they preserved during the 

 winter must have been generally very sparingly 

 dieted, and their milk consequently poor. This 

 must have been especially the case in the more ele- 

 vated and northern portions of our island. 



Those who are aware of the abundance of ex- 

 cellent meat, milk, and butter, with which the 

 Scotch markets are now replenished, may well be 

 amused with the very contrary state of affairs which 

 existed in Caledonia about two hundred and fifty 

 years since — at a time, be it remembered, when 

 green crops were unknown, and root crops and 

 cake not yet " invented." 



It svas about October, 1616, according to Cham- 

 bers {Domestic Ann. of Scotland, vol, i. p. 472), 

 that preparations began to be made in Edinburgh 

 for the reception and entertainment of King James 

 the First, who was expected in the following year 

 to visit his kingdom of Scotland. Considerable 

 repairs were ordered, and improvements made in 

 the royal palaces of Holyrood and Falkland. A 

 proclamation was made that " Beasts be fed in every 

 place, that there might be abundance of flesh when 

 the King came to the country." It is evident, too, 

 that in those days the good city of Edinburgh was 

 not remarkable for its cleanliness, since the Privy 

 Council deemed it necessary to issue orders to its 

 inhabitants to prepare clean lodgings for the King's 

 friends and attendants, and to have the streets 

 purified. 



The Chancellor's circular to the Burghs, order- 

 ing them to arrange with their butchers for the 

 furnishing of "fed beef" against his Majesty's 

 " here-coming," continues Chambers, met an amus- 

 ing reply in the case of one little town — Western 

 Anstruther. " Our town," says this response, " is 

 ane very mean town — yea, of all the burghs of this 

 realm the meanest. Nather is there ane flesher 

 (butcher) in our town, nor any other person that is 

 accustomed with feeding of beef, we being all sea- 

 faring men and fishers." Nevertheless, the two 

 bailies were evidently determined not only to do 

 their best, but to set about it forthwith, since they 

 informed his lordship that they " had dealt with 

 some honest men of our neighbours to feed beef; 

 and had enjoint them to have in readiness the num- 

 ber of four fed holt against the time of his 

 Majesty's here-coming, which may be lookit for in 

 our town." 



Easter Anstruther, which it seems has always 

 been a better sort of town, was equally unac- 



quainted with " that trade of the feeding of beef ;" 

 but the bailie, nevertheless, had "taken such order 

 that there sail be in readiness, to that diet, twelve 

 oxen of the best we can get for money." The 

 honest and canny burghers of Dysart deemed it 

 necessary to be very cautious in what they under- 

 took in this, to them, novel trade of beef-making; 

 they only promised, therefore, to have ready, "Ten 

 or twelve sufficient and weel-fed beasts upon com- 

 petent and reasonable prices, and sail feed and 

 keep them sae lang as we may possibly get suffix 

 cient food for them, according to the season, not 

 doubting of your lordshipp's satisfaction in case of 

 our losses." 



Such difficulties in winter-feeding cattle have 

 been experienced, in some places, almost to our 

 time. Alton, who described the agriculture of Ayr- 

 shire, early in the present century, tells us that the 

 winter food of the dairy stock, even at that period, 

 was only the straw of oats, or, towards the muirish 

 parts of the county, the hay of bog meadows, fre- 

 quently but ill-preserved. For a few weeks after 

 they calved they were allowed some poor corn, and 

 chaff boiled, with infusions of hay ; and, by way 

 of luxury, a morsel of rye-grass, or lea-hay, once 

 every day ; and of late years, by some farmers, a 

 small quantity of turnips in the early part of the 

 winter, and a few potatoes in the spring, have been 

 added. 



The editor of the Quarterly Journal of Agricul- 

 ture {vol. 1859, jJ. 661), in quoting this report of 

 Alton, refers also to the calculation of Sir John 

 Sinclair, who supposed that the same quantity of 

 herbage that would add 224lbs. to the weight of an 

 ox would produce 900 gallons of milk ; and thence 

 draws the conclusion, that if we reckon 6 oz. of 

 butter to be the average weight obtained from a 

 gallon of milk, we shall thus get 337lbs. of butter 

 from the same quantity of herbage as Sinclair sup- 

 poses will produce 224lbs. of beef. Or if we con- 

 vert the two into their respective money values, 

 then, according to the present rates, we shall ob- 

 tain, at 7d. per lb., £6 10s. 8d. for the beef, and at 

 Is. per lb., £16 17s. as the value of the butter. 

 The evidence of Sinclair pretty well supports the 

 general conclusion of the farmer, that the sale of 

 milk and butter is, under fair circumstances, the 

 most profitable mode of converting vegetable food 

 into money. 



But still the comparative profit must not be re- 

 garded as practically thattowhichlhave just alluded. 

 The much greater labour needed in the conversion of 

 cream into butter must be taken in account ; and 

 this is no mean item in a dairy. It is the value of 

 this labour, in fact, that gives the small working 

 dairyman the advantage; for he receives, in tlie value 

 of the butter, high wages for all the care and time he 



