CATTLE. 155 



It is supposed that a milk cow of medium quality, in tliis part of the 

 country, will give twelve quarts of milk for two months after calvinir, 

 seven quarts per day on grass for the next four .nonths, four quarts per 

 day for tlie following two months, and perhaps two quarts per day for 

 one month more; making altogetljer 1,500 quarts in the year.* 



THE SPAYING OF COWS.f— A' land-owner in the United States, Mr. 

 AYinn, seems to have had the first practice in spaying cows. The ob- 

 ject of the operation was to maintain in the cow, without interruption, 

 a supply of the same quantity of milk that she gave at the time of spav- 

 ing. Notwithstanding the favorable results that Mr. Winn claimed to 

 have obtained, the operation remained almost unknown in France until 

 a veterinary surgeon of Lausanne (a Swiss), M. Levrat, made known the 

 experiments practiced by him, and their effects. The treatise of M. 

 Levrat ends with the follow^ing conclusions: 



" The effect of spaying seems to me to be, to cause a more abundant and 

 constant secretion of milk, which possesses also superior qualities, whence 

 the following advantages result to the proprietor : 



" 1. An increase of one third in the quantity of milk. 



" 2. The certainty of having almost constantly the same quantity of 

 milk. 



" 3. Exemption from accidents which may happen during tlie period 

 of heat, when the cows mount each other, or are covered by too larc-e 

 bulls. 



" 4. Exemption from the risk of accidents which sometimes accom- 

 pany or follow gestation and calving. 



" 5. Ease in fatting cows, when their milk begins to dry up. 



" 6. Li fine, spaying is the only means of preventing onerous expenses, 

 occasioned by cows becoming ' taurelieres,'' which is so frequently the 

 case in some countries, that it is rare to see cows kept more than two 

 or three years without getting in this state; as, for example, in the en- 

 virons of Lausanne and Lavaux, where they are obliged for this reason 

 to change all their cows every two or three years, which is quite ruin- 

 ous." 



M. Levrat confirmed, after a year's observations, this fact, that the 

 quantity of milk was constantly j^ept the same after the time of spaying. 



M. Regere, veterinary surgeon at Bordeaux, inserted in the Bee iieil cle 

 Medecine Veterinaire, a series of facts upon the spaying of cows, that 

 had been acted npon by various proprietors. 



It appears from these facts, which he recounts with many details, an.d 

 whose authenticity is fixed, that the spayed cows have given, without 

 interruption, after the operation, a quantity of milk at least double the 

 average of what they gave during the preceding years. "After the 

 researches that I have made since I commenced all these experiments, 

 to the present time," says M. Regere, "this calculation is verv exact, and 

 if the cows continue to give milk during their whole life, in like manner, 



* " Farmer's Eveniug Day-Book." 



f Statement of M. P. A. Morin, 'Veterinary Surgeon at the Eoyal Depot at Lang- 

 onnet. Translated for the Working Farmer^ from '■ La Normandle Agricole Journal 

 d' Agriculture Pratique^ 



