NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



VOL. IV. 



Published hy JOHN' B. RUSPCLI-, al thp rornpr nfCon?n's « nn<\ I.inrlall S(rp»t', Pn.tnn TUOMAR Tr. FK.PSF.^PT^N'. FriTOR. 



No. H. 



ORZOX27AZ. COX^BSUmCATXONS. 



FOR THE NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



COLONEI- PICKERING, 



ON IMPROVING THE NATIVE RREED 



OF NEW ENGLAND CATTLE. 



LctkT VIII. 



The i^enrrnl cniise in «hicli Mr. Poivel is 

 zealously enfr'.ipfed — the iinprnrement of the hus- 

 bandry nf ovr countri/, in all its hro}icfirs — in- 

 duced a desire, on my part, while exnmining' 

 liis piitilicjilions, tn sny nolhino Ibnl couli! pos- 

 sibly excite iin unpli'Hs.nnI feeling : hut 1 r,in- 

 not do justice to the subject ami myself wilhoiit 

 some (reedom of remark. — Hi? three letters 

 which he denominates '• Reply to Cnl. Picker- 

 ing:, on Native Cattle," claim particular notice. 

 They were puMished in the American Farmer 

 printed at Baltimore — reprinted in the New 

 England Farmer nl Boston, No. 46, .'jO, of Vol. 

 HI. and No. 1, of Vol. IV. and are intended (o 

 take a permanent station in the next volume of 

 the Memoirs of the Pennsylvania Agricultural 

 Society, to whose Prosidon! they are addressed. 



In his first letter, Mr. Powol says that " / 

 have given the spur to his hobby." This cer- 

 tainly was not intended, nor necessary. While 

 1 could have no objection (o his mounting, 1 

 could nnt but presume that he would have held 

 a rein tight enough to prevent his holiby from 

 running away with him. Lj)fortunately I have 

 found myself mistaken. 



In his first letter, Mr. Powel says " he is nr,\ 

 fond of deductions from figures, in relation to 

 Agricultural matters :" — Yet he does sometimes 

 make use of figures, though in a very extraordi- 

 nary manner : — "• That he is mucli more dis- 

 posed to take the imjiressions founded upon a 

 series of evidence, arising from general inves. 

 tigation, than isolated [detached or single] 

 facts." — This is the very course 1 have taken 

 and pursued in my Ibrmer letters ; which ex- 

 hibit the result of my general investigation ol 

 (he subject. In those foui letters, I travelled 

 with Young and Marshall through various coun 

 ties and <listricts of England ; and tVom their 

 journals, stated, that the annual products in but- 

 ter, of the English dairies, varied from two fir- 

 kins to two and a half and three firkins, p-er 

 «ow, by the year. 



As Young and Marshall are called " Old Wri- 

 ters,'' and therefore not good authorities in (/le^e 

 <i7«fs, I might, if the passage had occurred to 

 me, have quoted one of Mr. PowePs own mo- 

 dern "xritcrs ; Culley on Live Stock, as cited in 

 Rees' Cyclopedia, article " Cattle." — " The 

 shorl-horned breed of cattle, according to Mr, 

 Culley, differs from the other breeds in the 

 shortness of their horns, in being wider and 

 thicker in their form or mould, consequently 

 feeding to the most weight, in affording by 

 much the greatest quantity of tallow when fat- 

 tened, in having very thin hides, and much less 

 hair upon them than any other breed, except 

 the Alderney ; but that the most essential dif- 

 ference, he thinks, consists in the quantities 

 of milk they give beyond any other breed: 



there being ivstances of cows of this breed 

 giving 3G quarts ol'milk per day, .Tnd of 40 fir- 

 kins ol" butler being made trom a dairy of ]2 

 cows ; hut tlir more general quantity is three fir- 

 l:ins (\GS pnnnds) per C'^-lV in a season, and 21 

 quarts of milk per diy." — " It is said of this 

 kind, and he supposes very justly, that they eat 

 more j nod Xhnn iwiy of the other brt'cds ; nor 

 can we, says he, wonder al thi«, « hen we con- 

 sider that they excel in these three valuable 

 particulars, viz. in affording the greatest quan- 

 tity efbeef. tallow and milk.'' 



Now let us see how ingeniously .Mr. Powel 

 " figures" to overthrow my statements, given 

 on the authority of Young and Marshall, and to 

 illustrate the positions he had assumed. — He 

 repeat", from m\ first letter, the great quanti- 

 ties of milk produced in some I'nglisli dairies, 

 per row, — from 2 to gallons, on an average 

 i'wp. gallons a day ; but omits the small annual 

 .amount of their butter — being, as above men- 

 tioned, 2 firkins, or 112 pounds per cow ; only 

 20 pounds more than the average of five ordi- 

 nary or coniinon dairies in ditTerent parts of 

 Massachusetts.* I slated on the authority of 

 Young, that in one district, a dairy of miildling 

 rows gave from 2 to '1 gallons of milk a day, and 

 from 1 to 7 pounds of butter per week. P'' 

 in this case Young does not say what -"^ the 

 yearlij product of each of those m'<'dling cows. 

 This omission gives Mr. Powol an opportunity 

 to make a display in figures ; and bis conclu- 

 sions show the /■l>'>rni ler of his calculations 

 |„ a .year arc ,'j2 iveeks ; and at 1 pou'ids ;i 

 week, each cow would yield 20Q pounds of but- 

 ler — and at 7 pounds a week 36 1 pounds of 

 butter in a year 1 What does the reader think 

 of this calculation? Will Mr. Powel hazard 

 his reputation as a practical farmer and a man 

 of sense, and say, that he thinks Mr. Young, in 

 mentioning the products of those middling 

 cows, at 4 to 7 pounds of bulter a week, meant 

 that they yielded those quantities in even/ week 

 in the year ? — I am satisfied that Young did not 

 refer even to the -zvhole of the butter making 



* Alllinu£b 1 Fpeak ot'Jive dairies, corresponding with 

 ihe^five reports of thera, vf t those five, r^sptctivt'Iy, 

 are to be considered as the avprajes of the dairies ge- 

 nerally, in the townships, counties, and districts from 

 which tlie reports were leceived. 



Youi:^, in his Annals of Agriculture, Vol. "2, p. 144- 

 5, gives the product in butter of a dairy of cows ^* of 

 every denomination,'' as communicated by one of hi^ 

 correspondents; and the average quaiitily in I79t^ 

 was 146 3-4 pounds — and in 1797, 140 pounds. — 

 This volume was printed in 17&9. 



Same volume, p. 59, Youn^ says that in France, 

 a GOV is a good one that gives 3 pounds of butter a 

 weefc ; tbr which he quotes a French author. 



hi the same page, in stating the annual product of 

 a cow in butter, at 168 pounds. Young remarks, that 

 for a ehort time a great deal per week !3 given, and 

 thence declines to nothing. He apportions the whole 

 in this manner : 



8 weeks 8 lb. per week C4 pounds 

 8 ' 6 ' 48 ' 



4 ' 5 ' iO ' 



4 ' 4 ' 16 ' 



4 ' 3 ' 12 ' 



4 ' e ' e ' 



sfaunn ; but onl}' to r portion of it, when the 

 jinstiirage was the best, and the cows' at th<» 

 top of ibcir milking. But to show niore slnk- 

 iiiglv the character of Mr. Powel's calcnlalir.ria 

 and reasoniiii;'? on this subject, let another of 

 tny statements be consiilered. Young says tliat 

 in one district, where some good cows gave 

 from 6 to 7 gallruis of milk a day, the dairies 

 I averaged 2^ tiikins, or 140 pounds of butler 

 per cow, by the year. Now take the mediuin 

 of the milk, 6i gallon*, or 25 quarts per 

 day. and muliiply these by the days in a year, 

 the amount »vill bo 0190 quarts, which divided 

 by 1 10 (the number of pounds of butter in the 

 year.) and you will have 67 and Il-14lhs, al- 

 most 68 quarts of milk required to make one 

 pound of butler. Wliitever opinion I may bo 

 supposed to entertain of the present mo't 

 fashionable breed of English cows, 1 do not 

 believe that the poorest in that kingdom yield 

 such miserable milk-and-water stuff as Mr. Pow- 

 el"s calculations imply ; but on the contrary, 

 that at the present period, 21 quarts, from the 

 thinnest milk dairy cows, may probably yield a 

 pound of butter :' yt Ibis is three times the 

 quanti'.v '"T'Ted of the milk of the Oakcs cow 

 ,;.:l)ly "fed. 



In the case just now ciled from Culley, slating 

 the average prnduct of dairies of the shorl-horn 

 cows, being three firkins in a season, and 24 

 quarts of milk a day— if Mr. Powel's mode of 

 calculating were adopted, 52 quarts of milk 

 would lie required to make a pound of butter. 



Mr. Powel [inceeds in his wonderlnl calcu- 

 lations. The reader will recollect my state- 

 ment of the prouuct of Mr. Wheeler's dairy of 

 seven cows, in Emmingham in Massachusetts, 

 for six months, to be 941 j pounds of butter, 

 and 1300 pounds of skiTi milk cheese. In re- 

 lation to this, Mr. Powfl says — " We are .is- 

 sured by Col. Pickering, and by Arthur Young 

 who wrote 50 or 60 years ago, that the best 

 cows of the Lincolnshire breed, would give, on 

 an average, 7 or 8 pounds of bulter a week.* 

 If then (continues Mr. Powel,) 7 Lincolnshire 

 cows had been taken 50 or 60 years ago, they 

 would have given annually from 2548 to 2912 

 pounds of bulter." — Here again the reader, it 

 he takes up his pen, will find Mr. Powel making 

 his calculations by the same extraordinary rule 

 I have already been obliged to exhibit and 

 expose. Seven cows, each yielding 7 pounds 

 of butler a week, will, in 52 weeks, give 2543 

 pounds, and at 8 pounds a week, 2912 pounds, 

 in the year ; that h, in one case, Mr. Powel 

 makes each of the 7 cows give 364 pounds, 

 and in the other, 416 pounds of butter, by the 

 year. Comments on this calculation are un- 

 necessary. 



In the next paragraph of his Reply No. 1, 

 Mr. Powel proceeds, on similar ground, to 

 make another calculation. — " If, (says he) the 

 English cows which " gave 9 gallons daily," 

 had been milked separately (admitting that on- 

 ly one pound of butter could have been ob- 



32 



)63 



* 1 stated from Mr. Young, that they gave 6 gallons 

 of milk a day, and 7 or 3 pounds of butter a week v 

 thus requiring, in one case 24, and in the other 21 

 quarts of milk, to make a pound of butter. 



