402 BRITISH HUSBANDRY. [Ch. XXXVI. 



incrs.*" It should therefore be thorouglily drawn from the cow, both to 

 secure this hitter portion and to ensure the continuance of the usual supply ; 

 for if any be allowed to remain in the udder, she yields a lesser quantity at 

 the next milling: a fact which has been accounted for by supposing that 

 the portion left in the udder is absorbed into the system, and that nature 

 generates no more than to supply the waste of what has been taken away. 

 The greatest care should therefore be i)aid to have them clean milked. They 

 should also be treated with great gentleness, and soothed by mild usage, espe- 

 cially when young and ticklisli ; for they never let their milk down pleasantly 

 to a person whom they dread or dislike. If the paps are sore or tender, 

 they ought to be fomented with warm water before milking, and, indeed, if 

 the operation of milking be nicely performed, they should be each time clean 

 washed ; but this, we are sorry to say, is too often neglected. 



The choice of servants ^or performing the duties of the dairy should there- 

 fore never be intrusted but to persons in whose unremitting care and gen- 

 tleness the utmost confidence may be reposed. All its operations should 

 be also conducted with the most punctual regularity, and with such extreme 

 cleanliness that no speck or taint shall be discoverable either about the inte- 

 rior of the house or the utensils. Throughout Ireland, Scotland, and the 

 North of England, it is invariably left to women, and were men so 

 employed, they would consider themselves degraded ; but in our southern 

 counties great hulking fellows may be seen seated at the udder and handling 

 the teats with their huge fists, as if they had the delicate fingers of a girl. 

 Females are in every way competent to the work ; to which they are 

 better suited by their delicacy and tenderness than men : it is, indeed, a 

 trulv feminine employment, and to their hands it should be left. 



Regarding quantity and quality of milk, there are few persons who 



* The foUowini^ facts respecting this circumstance, as ascertained by Dr. Anderson, 

 prove that the loss of half 'a pint of this milk occasions the loss of as much cream as 

 would be afforded by a far greater quantity of the first milkings, besides that portion of 

 the cream which gives the greatest richness and flavour to the butter : — 



'' Having taken several large tea-cups, exactly of the same size'and sha])e ; one of these 

 was filled at the beginning of the milking, and the others at regular uitervals till the 

 last, which was filled with the dregs of the siroakings. These were each weighed, the 

 weight of each cup being settWd, so as to ascertain that the qnantitj' of milk in each was 

 precisely the same; and from a great number of trials frequently repeated, with many 

 different cows, the result was thus: — 



" The quantity of cream obtained from the first drawn cup was, in every case, much 

 smaller than from that which was last drawn ; and those between afforded less or more 

 as they were nearer the beginning or the end. The quantitj' of cream obtained from the 

 last drawn cup from some cows exceeded that from the first in the proportion of six- 

 teen to otie. In other cows, however, and in particular circumstances, the disproportion 

 was not so great; but in no case did it fall short of the ratio of eiyht to one. 



" The difference in the quality of the cream, however, obtained from these two cups 

 was much greater than the difference in the quantity. In the first cup the cream was a 

 thin, tough film, thinner, and perhaps whiter, than paper ; in the last the cream was of a 

 thick consistence, and of a richness of colour that no other kind of cream was ever found 

 to posses'*. 



" The difference in the quality of the milk that remained after the cream was sepa- 

 rated was, perhaps, still greater than either, in respect to the quantity or the quality of 

 the cream. The milk in the first cup was a thin bluish liquid, like as if a very large 

 proportion of water had been mixed with ordinary milk; that in the last cup was of a 

 thick consistence and yellow colour, more resembling cream than milk, both in taste and 

 appearance."' — Batli Papers, vol. v., art. vi., p. 73. 



In the account of trials on the same subject, however, made by a dairj^man in Lan- 

 cashire, the result of the afteriiigs, though more productive in butter than when the whole 

 milk was churned, was not more profitable, as the sale of the skim-milk was less. — Dick- 

 son's Rep., p,'}56 



