148 NOTES ON FIELDS AND CATTLE. 



to affirm that they have found this recipe a failure : 

 the secret of success lies in the two being blended at 

 the same temperature ; either one being cold, the 

 experiment we have found to fail ; but when they 

 are mixed, both being at blood-heat, it is an infallible 

 specific for that offensive flavour. 



I may note here, that some try to avoid the taste 

 of turnips by giving the cattle their roots just after 

 instead of before milking, as though the fragrance 

 and flavour could filter off their system somehow by 

 the next milking time. This practice looks to me 

 like trying to " lick natur," as our Yankee cousins 

 express it ; and is to be classed with the invention 

 of the ingenious Paddy, who professed to grow 

 streaked bacon by starving his pig on one day, and 

 giving him of his choicest store the next. 



The profit of a cow will depend much upon cir- 

 cumstances : it will ring the changes between 61 in 

 country hamlets, up to 20Z. near towns, where butter 

 is of higher price, and milk has a ready sale. In 

 Cornwall, a milch cow is let for 71. ; whereas a Lon- 

 don milkman will — we have it on the authority of 

 Mr. Milburn — occasionally make the apparently 

 enormous sum of SOI. in the year from a single cow. 

 This, of course, is an exceptional case, as is the 

 tremendous rent of the water meadows that enjoy 

 the flooded sewerage of Edinburgh. We have, our- 

 selves, a profitable consumption of the milk and 

 butter, besides much that is given to rearing calves 

 and colts ; and our average is about 14Z. a cow per 

 annum. Locality is everything. In some places, 

 butter maintains a high and steady price ; at others 



