FEEDING FOR MILK OR BUTTER. 71 



I conclude, from my observation and experience, and from 

 what I learned here yesterday, that the quality of the food 

 affects the quality of the milk and also of the meat. It is well 

 known that the child who nurses an intoxicated human mother, 

 or rather inhuman mother, itself becomes intoxicated ; and I 

 have learned since I came here that one member of this Board 

 has been complained of for violating the prohibitory law by feed- 

 ing sweet apples to his cows and selling the milk ! If such is 

 the case — if the quality of the food affects the milk and the 

 meat — we should be very careful what we feed to our cows. 

 And we know that it is so ; we know that the least change in 

 our feed does affect the milk. I had this in my mind yesterday, 

 when I asked Mr. Birnie the question if his object was to make 

 butter or milk for the market. It seems to me that the feed 

 which he gives his animals would be better for producing milk 

 than butter. He recommended cabbages for cows. I recollect 

 that a year ago I mentioned to the Board the fact, that having 

 an opportunity at one time to purchase a lot of cabbages very 

 cheap, I bought them and fed them freely to my cows, and the 

 result was that they spoiled the butter. Butter-making is as 

 much an object with us as milk-producing in other localities. 

 One gentleman, a worthy member of the Board, who is a good 

 farmer, and whose wife is one of the best of farmers' wives, and 

 a good butter-maker, said he could not believe that cabbages or 

 turnips would affect butter. He had occasion to call at my 

 house afterwards, and brought me a little cake of butter, and 

 asked me what I thought of that butter. I told him it was 

 very good, but it smelt just as our butter did at the time I fed 

 the cows cabbages and turnips. It was not perfectly sweet. 



Now, I say that the feed which has been recommended here 

 (we may call it trashy feed — it is light feed,) will produce the 

 greatest quantity of milk, but it is not the feed which will 

 produce the best and sweetest butter. Articles of food which 

 will answer for one purpose, may not answer for another. It 

 is not for me to say what particular stock shall be raised in any 

 locality. It is not for the farmers of Berkshire or Franklin to 

 say what stock shall be raised in Essex or Nantucket ; and it is 

 not for the farmers of Essex, or Barnstable, or Plymouth, to say 

 what stock we shall breed on the Connecticut River. It is not 

 for us to say that such and such articles are the best for dairy 



