114 KEEPING ONE COW. 



which was sometimes no inconsiderable item. These were always 

 thrown into the feed basket, and just enough fresh roots sliced to 

 make the required weight. After the roots stored in the cellar 

 were exhausted no account was made of this ilem. I make this 

 statement simply to show that every item of feed was entered at 

 its full value, into the cost of the keeping. 



Now for the other side. Although the cow was quite thin when 

 I bought her, yet under this system of care and feeding, she was 

 estimated to have gained two hundred pounds in weight by the 

 time she calved, on the fifteenth of April, 1878, and of this weight 

 she had not lost more than seventy-five pounds at the end of the 

 year, November first. When I bought her she was represented as 

 yielding three quarts of milk per day. Her yield of milk weighed 

 on the first day exactly five and three-quarter pounds. At the 

 end of three weeks, it had increased to eleven pounds per day, and 

 continued at this figure with scarcely any interruption until the 

 first of February. It then rapidly fell off, until by the twenty-fifth 

 of that month, she yielded only seven pounds per day. I then 

 commenced milking her once a day, and the milking on the fourth 

 day after weighed only four and a half pounds. I continued 

 milking her until the fifteenth of March, when I stopped, the 

 weight of the last milking being only one and three-quarter pounds. 

 On the tenth or April she calved. I let her calf suckle her until it 

 was four weeks old, when it was sold for veal. On the seventh of 

 May her yield of milk was twenty-two pounds. It averaged about 

 that figure until she got a full feed of pea vines in June, when it 

 ran up as high as twenty-seven pounds. In July it fell off some, 

 and continued to run from twenty to twenty-three pounds until 

 the middle of August. It then gradually diminished to the first of 

 November, at which time she was yielding thirteen pounds of 

 milk per day. I find, by referring to my diary, that her total 

 yield of milk from the time I purchased her until she calved, was 

 one thousand and sixty-seven pounds, equal to four hundred and 

 eighty-four quarts, reckoning thirty-four ounces to the quart. 

 Milk was then selling, in this vicinity, at six cents per quart, mak- 

 ing a value of twenty-six dollars and four cents. 



From the time she calved until the first of November, her total 

 yield of milk was three thousand seven hundred and seventy-seven 

 pounds, equal to one thousand seven hundred and seventy-seven 

 quarts, at five cents, eighty-eight dollars and eighty-five cents; 

 sale of calf, six dollars and fifty-cents ; making a net profit of 

 seventeen dollars and thirty-nine cents, to say nothing of the 



