BREEDS OF DAIRY CATTLE . 149 



milk, manure, or urine, should be noted and promptly receive the 

 attention which it deserves. Experience is needed on the part of the 

 caretaker to detect and correct the beginnings of trouble, and thus 

 maintain the general health of the herd. 



Regularity and Cleanliness. A herd of good dairy cows de- 

 serve to have good care, and this can only be insured by having the 

 right kind of attendants. If the owner is unable to either attend 

 the cows himself or give the matter personal supervision twice a day 

 or more, it is to his interest and profit to be certain that his em- 

 ployees are trustworthy and fit to be cow keepers. Everyone should 

 be quiet, even-tempered, gentle, and regular and cleanly in his 

 habits. A cow abominates an unclean man. Tobacco in all its 

 forms is obnoxious to every department of dairying. All the work 

 about the herd should be done with the utmost system and regular- 

 ity stable cleaning, grooming, exercise, watering, feeding, milk- 

 ing; a fixed time for everything and everything at its time on the 

 dot, (Agr. Dep. F. B. 55.) 



Methods of Mil Icing. Milking the dairy cow is such a simple 

 operation, and one that occupies in the aggregate, so much of the 

 dairyman's time, that it is easy to become careless about it and to 

 look upon the operation as one not requiring skill nor demanding 

 scientific investigation. The feeding of the herd has received careful 

 attention, both by investigators and farmers, until it is now probably 

 correct to say that the dairy cow in the hands of the progressive 

 dairyman is more scientifically fed and nourished than most chil- 

 dren. The ventilation and sanitation of stables has also been the 

 subject of much discussion, but it is certainly a fact that the art of 

 milking has not received the attention it deserves, at least not until 

 very recently. (Cornell B. 213.) 



It matters not how high the grade of the individuals comprising 

 the dairy herd, or with what care they are housed and fed, careless 

 or ignorant milking is sure to reduce the quantity and lower the 

 quality of the milk and eventually ruin the milking qualities perma- 

 nently, especially in the case of the heaviest milkers. It is even 

 claimed by high authorities that the progeny of a fine milking strain 

 may be seriously affected in their milking qualities for generations 

 afterwards, no amount of after care being capable of repairing the 

 damage done. Thi? indicates strikingly one phase of the possible 

 far-reaching effect of carelassness or ignorance in one branch of the 

 manifold operations of .the dairy. 



On the other hand, careful, observant dairymen have profited 

 by the knowlege that thorough stripping tends to stimulate and de- 

 velop milk secretion, and therefore insist that their milkers strip 

 clean. The shippings are much richer in fat than is the first milk 

 drawn from the udder. 



With this knowledge so general among dairymen, it seems a 

 little strange that the facts have only recently been worked over into 

 a definite practical system, applicable in every well-regulated dairy. 



