102 MONTHLY JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURE. 



greater facility ; [8] the bones, however, should not be coarse and iarsre ; a short- 

 legged cow is preferable ; the hair should be neither staring nor hard. A Glou- 

 cestershire rhyme describes a beauiiful cow as being 



" Long iu her sides, bright in her ey<>3, 



Short in her legs, tliin in her thiglis, 



Big in her ril)s, wide in her pnis. 



Full in her bosom, small in her shins, 



Long in her fijcc, fine in her tail, 



And never deficient in filling her pail. 



There is no month in the year equal to March for the production of calves, if 

 we take the whole country into our calculation. As cows will propagate their 

 species at any period of the year, it consequently depends in most cases upon the 

 views of the farmer or grazier regarding the ultimate profits arising from cattle 

 that we everywhere find some cows producing calves at one season of the year 

 and some at another. Spring, however, is the priucij)al season with breeders of 

 stock in general, since calves produced early in spring commonly make out 

 better, and are more profitable upon the whole (except such as are intended 

 for the butcher) than those produced at any other season ; whereas cows that 

 calve several months before there is a supply of grass, scarcely ever yield so 

 much milk during the succeeding summer as if the case had been otherwise ; 

 and hence the profits are lessened, to whatever purpose the milk may be con- 

 verted. However, in large and populous towns and communities there is a con- 

 stant demand for milk (and butter too) throughout the whole year, so that those 

 persons who keep dairies, and supply their customers during the entire summer, 

 are under the necessity of meeting the demand during the winter also ; and 

 hence some of their cows are always in full milk, that is, newly calved. Much, 

 however, is now effected by the use of turnips, mangel-wurzel, cabbages, car- 

 rots, and other succulent vegetables, in the way of causing cows to supply plenty 

 of milk during the winter ; but as it is a well ascertained fact that these vegeta- 

 bles cannot be cultivated but at a greater cost to the farmer than summer grass, 

 this system is but little resorted to, except in situations where it always com- 

 mands a remunerating price to the dairyman. In the principal districts where 

 cheese is made in large quantities — as, for instance, Cheshire, Derbyshire, Glou- 

 cestershire, Dorsetshire, &c. — the dairy farmers invariably contrive to have their 

 cows calving sufficiently early in the season to enable them to commence cheese- 

 making at the period there is enough of grass for the cows being turned out to pas- 

 ture ; and this process of cheese-making is regularly continued into the autunui : 

 and in the early part of the winter the cows are no longer milked, as there exists 

 a somewhat general opinion that cows that are allowed to go dry for three or four 

 months before calving are apt to yield a greater quantity of milk during the next 

 season. Besides, there is a saving in the expense of maintaining dry cows ; for it 

 is the general custom in the dairying districts to feed these cows upon straw and 

 a small quantity of hay, or else a few turnips, after they no longer yield milk, 

 until within a short period of their calving. 



Dr. Lyon Playfair, having selected a cow in good milking condition and at the 

 time fed upon after-grass, ascertained the average amount of her milk for five 

 days, and then proceeded to analyze it. In the first day it was observed that the 

 milk of the evening contained 3'7 per cent, of butter, and of the following morn- 

 ing 5-6 per cent. The deficiency in the first observation is referred to the con- 

 sumption of a greater portion of the butter or its constituents, from respiratory 

 oxidation during the day, when the animal was in the field, than during the 

 night, when it was at rest in the stall. When confined during the day, and fed 

 with after-grass in a shed, the proportion of the butter rose to a-1 per cent. ; 



(8). Greater ailention to this traveling: capacity in cattle and hogs was needed formerly iliiui 

 now ; though it is yet necessary. Cheapness of transportation by steam, and improvement in 

 the art of curing provisions to suit our own and the foreign market, will cause a much larger 

 proportion of beef and pork to be slaughtered on the spot where it is fattened, than lias here- 

 tofore happened. One of the best known and most extensive graziers in Kentucky, General 

 T. Shelby, went this summer to England expressly for the purpose of lookin? thoroui,'hly into 

 this subject, and promised to favor us, for The Fakmeu-s' Library, with the result of his 

 observations. [/■."(/. Fiimi. LiO. 



(246) 



