FEED CABBAGES AFTER MILKING. 83 



to be very excellent, strong, wholesome food, and not injurious 

 to the milk, and others holding the contrary opinion. In my 

 neighborhood, the cabbage yields from forty-four to fifty tons of 

 green feed to the acre, and we keep it all winter. A furrow is 

 ploughed by the side of a wall or fence, the cabbages are set in 

 it and covered up, and furnish an abundant supply of green 

 feed for the winter. Cabbage will yield about fifty tons to the 

 acre ; that gives a large quantity of feed, and if it can be used 

 with safety to the butter and milk, it is certainly very desirable 

 to know it. 



I have some very early English turnips which I began to feed 

 six or eight weeks ago, and it destroyed a churning of butter, 

 and the milk was injured. Mr. Birnie has stated a fact that 

 reconciles this difference of opinion. He states that he feeds 

 cabbages and turnips in the morning, after milking. I changed 

 my time of feeding from before milking to after milking, and I 

 was surprised at the result. The night's milk was not injured, 

 and we were never troubled after we began feeding after milk- 

 ing. I do not find any injury from feeding either cabbage or 

 turnip in that way, and I find them very valuable feed. 



Mr. Brown. The suggestions of Prof. Agassiz in relation to 

 the necessity of inquiries to determine the quality of milk, are 

 very important to us ; and if the Board of Agriculture will come 

 to some conclusion in regard to the matter, and publish it, so as 

 to set our people to making experiments and investigating the 

 matter, they would do the country a very great service. I have 

 no doubt whatever that tlie quality of the food affects the quality 

 of the milk ; but I have some doul:)ts whether, by the test of the 

 lactometer we can discover the variations. It seems to me it will 

 require some nicer instrument. Now, if I want milk that will 

 give me a large quantity of butter, I send my cows away upon 

 the hills, where the grass is short and very sweet ; and if the 

 hills are stony so much the better. Cows feeding on such grass 

 will give milk that will make, I think, double the quantity of 

 butter that the same amount of milk will make when the cows 

 get into clover fields. But if I desire to make milk for our 

 Boston friends to use, I send the cows into the most luxurious 

 clover fields I can find, and then tlicy will give me brimming 

 pails. I have some facts, which I will not stop to relate, upon 

 that point, where exact experiments have been made from day 



