14 



1 have usually kept a herd of from sixteen io twenty 

 or more cows, and have endeavored to procure as good a 

 quality of stock as could be obtained with reasonable 

 effort, and to feed as highly as farmers usually con- 

 sider judicious. The result has been, that the cows have 

 yielded on an average from twenty to twen'ty-two hun- 

 dred quarts of milk annually ; varying w ith the quality 

 of pasturing and freedom from accident to the stock. 

 The average quantity of milk annually produced by cows 

 throughout the country, is estimated, I believe, at less 

 than eighteen hundred quarts, and it is probably safe 

 to estimate the average quantity of milk obtained from 

 the cow.s of Essex County, at not far from two thousand 

 quarts per year. 



The average wholesale price of milk is about four and 

 a half cents per quart, making the average annual in- 

 come of cows from ninety to one hundred dollars. To 

 offset this, we must reckon the value of about two tons 

 of hay, pasturing, a supply of green fodder in the fall, 

 and ten or twenty dollars' worth of grain, to say noth- 

 ing of labor and interest on capital. 



Now to show what is possible, I will give the result of 

 observations made a year or two since for the purpose of 

 ascertaining the difference in income from diflerent cows. 

 I selected three cows from my herd, one of wdiich had 

 been kept upon the place several seasons and was thought 

 to be fully an average cow ; the other two were superior. 

 The quantity of milk produced by each was carefully 

 noted each week for a year. The result showed, that 

 while the average cow produced only twenty-one hun- 

 dred quarts per year, one of the others produced^ thirty- 

 one hundred and the other thirty-five hundred quarts, in 

 the same time. There was no perceptible difference in 



