WORCESTER SOCIETY. 107 



" What is the average time that cows are in milk 1 Is there a 

 waste of fodder by keeping cows that yield little or no return 

 of profit?" 



There should be settled, in order to afford a standard, some- 

 thing like an average quality of milch cows; and no judicious 

 farmer should keep an animal for milk that fell below it ; all 

 should strive to go beyond it. It is supposed that a cow of 

 medium quality will give, for two months after calving, 12 quarts 

 of milk per day ; four months (following), 7 quarts ; two months, 

 4 quarts; one month, 2 quarts ; amounting to 1860 quarts, or 

 an average, for nine months, of about seven quarts per day. It 

 will take ten quarts of milk to make one pound of butter, thus 

 producing about 186 lbs., which, at 16 cents, amounts to about 

 $30. 



Suppose every farmer to resolve that he would keep no cow 

 that did not hold out as a good milker for ten months in the 

 year, and that did not give, for two months. 16 quarts per day ; 

 four months 12 quarts ; three months 7 ; one month 2 ; yield- 

 ing 3090 quarts, or, on an average, ten quarts per day for ten 

 months : — is it not practicable to have, throughout the county, 

 cows as good as the last described ? 



To say that the protit of milch cows is not generally under- 

 stood, would be saying that farmers are regardless of their own 

 interest : therefore, the committee will only say, that, in their 

 judgment, the average of cows in the county do not reach the 

 first described; and that there are, throughout the Common- 

 wealth, many, exceeding the last, the income from which would 

 be nearly twenty dollars more than the former, making a differ- 

 ence, to the farmer who numbered ten cows, of $200 per year. 

 Cows are creatures of education and circumstances ; no young 

 animal of promising appearance for milk should go to the 

 butcher, until there is a full supply of good cows. 



Let no undue prejudice prevent the selection of the best ani- 

 mals for breeding. It should be remembered that the native 

 cow, or animal most resembling the European cow, on the dis- 

 covery of this continent, was large, weighing about 1800 lbs., 

 with long woolly mane, thick neck, short tail, tufted at the end. 

 The inhabitants, being in a savage state, had never attempted 



