ON MILCH COWS. 25 



Imposing as all this is, I should much prefer the simple story 

 of Samuel Jaques, our own country-man, whose experiments 

 every mrai of us may in eiiect, repeat. 



It is a serious question for the Society to settle, whether 

 they really do the good they intend, by the present method. 

 Some think it would even be better to offer the premium for 

 each farmer's whole stock of cows, than, as at present, for the 

 petted one. It would be fairer no doubt. But suppose a stand- 

 ing offer were made to all who should repeat the experiment 

 of Col. Jaques, with such variations as were unavoidable. 

 Suppose a premium of |5l5 were offered to all who would be- 

 gin with one cow now making 12 to 14 lbs. of butter, or even 

 10 to 12 lbs. a week, and who siiould drive her to some supe- 

 rior bull, and all her progeny for five years to come should be 

 reared, the obviously faulty ones excepted, Would not the ef- 

 fort be made, and could it fail of promoting one grand object of 

 the Society, viz : the improvement of our stock of milch cows? 



How important an animal is the cow ! Into how many arti- 

 cles of Ibod does her milk enter ! That stomach has departed 

 fearfully from the simplicity of nature, that cannot bear milk ; 

 and yet many say they cannot bear it. Of its medical effects, 

 it is not proposed to speak, fiu'lher than to say, that one phy- 

 sician of eminence has remarked that it is of more value in 

 consumptions than the whole Materia Medica, and that for per- 

 sons in health, it is often better unboiled than boiled. 



But for food simply, almost any thing could be spared better 

 than milk in some of its forms. How then does it become ev- 

 ery farmer to increase the quantity, and improve the quality. 

 It is but lately that the attention of cow keepers has been dis- 

 tinctly called to the subject of kind treatment of milch cows. 

 The reports of Mr. Payson, Mr. Caldwell, and others, have 

 done great good in this respect. Keep this, too, before the 

 people. It is not necessary exactly, that the cow should be 

 separated from our parlor by a glass door only, as Mr. Payson 

 informs us is the case in Holland. But personal attention and 

 kind treatment she should have. So too, a warm barn, and 

 yet not the stived and sickly underground stables where the 

 cows are often kept m London, where they rarely if ever 

 4 



