562 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 



cows have been a long time celebrated for their abundance of 

 milk, which does not surprise one in looking at the rich polders 

 in which in summer they are fed, and where they are often seen 

 covered with a cloth as a protection against both the dampness 

 and the cold. Being unacquainted with the Dutch language, I 

 found it difficult to get as particular information as I desired. 

 Radcliffe, in his book on Flanders, says, that &quot; they are fair 

 milkers ; but in this respect nothing remarkable, the average 

 quantity, excepting in the grass districts, where it is infinitely 

 greater, being computed at about seven quarts each cow in the 

 twenty-four hours, through summer and winter.&quot; I quote this 

 passage for two reasons ; first, to show how loosely many people 

 speak and write on such subjects, for one is wholly at a loss to 

 know how much a product infinitely greater than seven quarts 

 may be supposed to be ; and next, to say that an average yield 

 of seven quarts per day, winter and summer, is a very great yield, 

 and is seldom equalled. There is another report of a farmer at 

 the Hague, furnished to Sir John Sinclair, where the milk estab 

 lishment of forty cows produced only about three quarts per day 

 to each cow throughout the year. 



The produce of a Dutch cow is rated at about eighty pounds of 

 butter, and one hundred and eighty pounds of whole-milk cheese, 

 in a year, which certainly is not an extraordinarily large amount. 

 They are generally of a black and white color. In some cases 

 they are milked three times in a day. In the greater part of Flan 

 ders I found them soiled upon clover or vetches, but principally 

 clover ; in Holland, they remain in the pasture all summer, where 

 they are milked : but in winter they make a part of the family, 

 and, in truth, live in the common eating-room of the family, it 

 being a part of the main house. 



The Swiss cows, as far as they have corne under my observa 

 tion, are to be considered of two kinds ; the cows ordinarily kept 

 on the common farms, and the mountain cows. The cows I 

 found at Hofwyl are, from appearance and the accounts I received 

 of them, the very finest of their kind. They are large, but not 

 tall ; broad in the back, full and square behind ; fine boned, and 

 with large udders, giving great quantities of milk. It is difficult, 

 especially at any distance of time, and when innumerable objects 

 are passing before the mind, to compare two objects, unless they 

 are present ; but I think I have never seen finer animals of the 



