12 



Large Dairy Establishments of London. 



Vol. X. 



very active dairymaid. The proprietors of 

 those, the two most extensive milk estab- 

 lishments in the world, are near and inti- 

 mate friends and neighbours from their birth, 

 are on the best possible terms, and have as 

 free recourse to either establishment as 

 though they belonged to the same person ; 

 they frequently compare notes as to the 

 management and expenses, and they both 

 still rigidly adhere to their own particular 

 management, each contending for his supe- 

 riority and offering to prove it by a refer- 

 ence to their books. All I can say is, that 

 both are managed with great care and at- 

 tention, systematized in every department ; 

 they have been carried on successfully and 

 profitably for more than half a century by 

 the fathers, and subsequently by their sons ; 

 and I have little doubt that, in a century 

 from now, whoever lives to see it, will find 

 the same successful operation, and both 

 under the management of the great grand- 

 children or immediate descendants of the 

 original founders. 



The Metropolitan Dairy is the next largest 

 establishment of the kind in London; it is 

 eituated on the Edgeware road — the north- 

 western suburb of the city — and was founded 

 some twenty-five years smce by the late Mr. 

 Rhodes. It was sold by him some few years 

 after, to one of the bubble companies of that 

 day, from which its present name is derived. 

 By them it was sold to Mr. Wilberforce, and 

 is now his property. It stands on about one 

 acre of ground, and is calculated to contain 

 about four hundred cows. The cow-houses 

 are in parallel ranges, twenty-four feet wide, 

 and side walls eight feet Rtgh ; the space 

 allowed here for each cow is three feet nine 

 inches, and the greater number of the cow 

 houses are without stalls. As in Mr. Rhodes's 

 establishment, the cows here are never un 

 tied, except to remove them to the fattening 

 sheds or to send them to the country to re- 

 main till calving time. A cow, so treated, 

 seldom produces more than two calves — re- 

 maining, afler each calf) an average of 18 

 months in milk. 



The cows are milked at three in the 

 morning and two in the afternoon, and the 

 milk dispoi-ed of to dealers as before de 

 scribed. The food is principally grains, 

 which, instead of being kept in pits in the 

 open air as at Rhodes's, are preserved in 

 the cellar of a large building about 14 feet 

 deep, and are covered, when packed down, 

 to the depth of one foot with cow-dung, to 

 protect them from the influence of the air. 

 Dry hay is seldom given in this establish- 

 ment, the chaff of clover hay being always 

 mixed with the grains or wash. The cows 

 are never turned out to water, but from a 



large cistern, pipes are conducted to every 

 cow house, and at certain hours each day, 

 the water is turned into the manger, which 

 is on a perfect level, and it runs slowly past 

 each cow, so that she drinks at pleasure. 

 When any cow gets sick, she is bled, and i» 

 purged by giving her one pound of epsom 

 salt, with two ounces of flour of sulphur, 

 and an abundance of warm water. The 

 mode of treatment seldom or never fails. 

 Four bulls are kept for the cows, and, as 

 they become dry or nearly so, they are sent 

 out to a grass farm till calving time. The 

 quantity of salt given the cows in their food 

 here, does not exceed one ounce daily, on 

 account, as they assert, of its drying quality, 

 a complaint I never heard made but in this 

 establishment, and with which I cannot con- 

 cur. The manure of this establishment is 

 disposed of in a singular and interesting 

 manner — all the fluid part is discharged by 

 sewers into a large brick cistern laid in 

 cement, and sold by the hogshead to the hay 

 farmers in the neighbourhood, to manure 

 their meadows with, which is done with the 

 common watering-cart used for the streets. 

 The solid manure is compressed into small 

 squares or cakes by a hydraulic press, and is 

 all shipped to Norfolk and to Yorkshire; the 

 computation is that a two-horse cart-load of 

 dung is reduced to the eize of a cubic foot 

 by this means. 



There are many minor dairy establish- 

 ments in and about London, none of which 

 are worthy of notice, save one at Little 

 Acton, about five miles from Hyde Park 

 corner, under the sole management of a 

 maiden lady, Mrs. Cook, and stands on a 

 farm of two hundred acres, the whole of 

 which is devoted to meadow. There are 

 two hundred and fifty cows in three sheds, 

 standing head to head, with a passage of 

 five feet between the troughs. The cows 

 here are never untied except for about two 

 months in the autumn, when they are let 

 out after each milking, for about two hours, 

 to fill themselves off the aftergrass. Water 

 is supplied to them in their troughs twice a 

 day, tiirough pipes from a fine spring adja- 

 cent. Grains, with roots and other green 

 meat, are the principal food of the cows ; 

 and Mrs. Cook considers it much more eco- 

 nomical to turn the entire of her farm to 

 meadow, and with the extra produce to pur- 

 chase the other ihod wanted for the cows, 

 rather than multiply her expenses and in- 

 crease her own trouble and cares, by placing 

 it under a system of agricultural courses. 

 There is no doubt but Mrs. Cook's estab- 

 lishment, for its 6i?;e, returns, under her pe- 

 culiar management, a better profit than any 

 other in L£)ndon or its neighbourhood. Her 



