326 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



Report of the Committee on two and three year old Heifers. 



Perhaps no department in the labors of the agriculturist is 

 more important, profitable, or worthy his attention, than that of 

 the dairy. In order that he may realize fully its benefit, he 

 must call to his aid not only science, but the observation 

 and experience of himself and others, that thereby the means 

 may be well and successfully adapted to the end. The farmer 

 is, emphatically, his own recruiting officer ; and as the members 

 of his dairy company are constantly passing out of the ranks, 

 some at a good old age, after having served their generation 

 well, and yielded their commander many pounds of the needful, 

 others have been turned out, being found destitute of those 

 qualifications requisite in a good company of milkers. For all 

 recruits, to sustain and enlarge his dairy, the farmer must turn 

 his attention to the particular branch of the exhibition, held 

 to-day, which has occupied the attention of your humble com- 

 mittee. 



At the risk of trespassing upon the limits of the committee 

 upon new milch cows, (though we will not not go into details,) 

 permit us to say that the same traits of character and physical 

 development are necessary in the younger members of the dairy, 

 which are prominent in the real model milkers of maturer 

 years. If these arc wanting, it is unwise to retain such for the 

 family. They should be at once discharged, and given their 

 rations, until they are considered, by good judges, fit subjects 

 for the butcher's knife ; or turned over to the breeding de- 

 partment. For who would think of retaining at a branch of 

 business a person that had no adaptedness or taste for that 

 particular pursuit, especially if profit was the ruling motive in 

 view? 



Your committee regret to say, (though they were thereby 

 relieved from otherwise so arduous a task,) that there was but 

 one entry for premium of three-year-old heifers, and though 

 there was no competition, yet your committee were at a loss 

 whether to award the first or second premium, until they ex- 

 amined the written statement, giving the yield of this heifer 

 during the first week of June and of September, viz. : — 



She calved March 28 ; calf an extra one ; has been kept with 



