No. 10. Milking Cows. — Profits of Poultry. — Grafting Currants. 305 



• Milking Cows. 



The owners of cows should pay particular 

 attention to milking. Children should not 

 be trusted with this business, and there are 

 many grown people who never milk well, 

 though they have been brought up to the 

 business. 



If you would obtain all the milk from the 

 cow, you must treat her with the utmost 

 gentleness; she must not stand trembling 

 under your blows nor under your threats. 

 She may at times need a little chastisement, 

 but at such times you need not expect all her 

 milk. 



Soon after the bag has been brushed by 

 your hand, and the ends of the teats have 

 been moistened a little with milk, it flows in 

 rapidly, and all the veins or ducts near the 

 teats are completely filled. Then it must 

 be drawn out immediately or you will not 

 get the whole. You must not sit and talk — 

 you must not delay one moment, if you would 

 have all the cow is then ready to yield. 



The udder should be moved in every di- 

 rection at the close of milking, and the hands 

 may beat it a little, in imitation of the beat- 

 ing which the calf gives it when he is suck- 

 ing. An expert milker will make the cow 

 give one quarter more in butter than a ma- 

 jority of grown milkers will. 



One season, at Framingham, says an ex- 

 perienced writer, we kept four cows in the 

 home lot; there was but little difference in 

 the quantity of milk given by each. We 

 had a very steady hired man of forty years of 

 age; he had carried on a farm in New 

 Hampshire, and had always been used to 

 milking; but he was so slow the cows had 

 no patience with him. 



We milked two of the cows, and he the 

 other two, and we were but little more than 

 half as long as he in milking, though we got 

 the largest mess by about one quart. On our 

 remonstrating, that he did not draw out all 

 the milk, he said his cows would not yield 

 so much as those milked by us. We then 

 made an exchange; he milked our two, and 

 we milked his. In three weeks time the 

 case was reversed ; our mess exceeded his 

 by nearly one quart. He never failed to 

 strip his cows to the last drop; but his m- 

 iolerable moderation prevented his obtaining 

 what an active milker would have done. 



Young learners may practice on cows that 

 are soon to be dried off. They should be 

 taught at first how to take hold of the teats, 

 and they will remember it; but how common 

 it is to let each child choose his own mode 

 of milking ! Learners should know that the 

 hand should be kept very near the extremity 

 of the teat, if they would milk with ease, 



The left arm should always press gently 

 against the leg of the cow ; for if she is in- 

 clined to kick, she cannot, with any force ; 

 she cannot strike an object that leans against 

 her ; but if she raises up her foot, as she oflen 

 will when her teats are sore, the milker will 

 be ready to ward off and keep it from the 

 pail, much better than when he sits far off 

 from the cow. 



If heifers are made tame and gentle by 

 frequent handling when they are young, they 

 are not apt to kick the milker ; their udders 

 should be rubbed gently before calving; it is 

 quite as grateful to them as carding. But if 

 they are sufiered to run wild till after they 

 have calved, they cannot be expected to be 

 gentle when you first attempt to milk them : 

 they often acquire bad habits, and are not 

 broken of them through life. — Emigrant's 

 Hand-Book. 



Profits of Poultry— Keeping Eggs. 

 Philip Smith, Jr., makes a statement in 

 a late number of the Cultivator, showing 

 that from a stock of 35 hens and a rooster, 

 he had a nett gain in the year 1844, of 

 $5 40, after paying $18 67 for grain, for 

 feeding, and the enormous rent of $15 for 

 yard, &c. They gave him 3115 eggs, and 

 an increase of 53 hens. He says : " My 

 manner of keeping eggs so that they will be 

 fresh, is as follows. I place a layer of saw- 

 dust in a keg, then pack the eggs closely to 

 each other, with the small end down, to pre- 

 vent the yolk from passing through the white 

 of the egg ; over this place another layer of 

 saw-dust, closely packing to, and between 

 the eggs, where they do not touch each other, 

 and so on to filling the keg; then head it 

 tight, and change it end for end every twenty- 

 four hours. In this manner eggs will keep a 

 year, and be as fresh as the day they were 

 laid." 



Grafting Cvrrants. — The Gardener's 

 Chronicle recommends for the pretty appear- 

 ance presented, as well as for improved fla- 

 vour, to graft currants of different colours, as 

 the red, black and white, variously inter- 

 mixed, on stocks trimmed up to a single 

 stem three or four feet high. The tops may 

 be headed down to a compact head, or trained 

 as espaliers in the horizontal or fan method, 

 the two latter modes of training, by the free 

 exposure to sun and air, much improving the 

 quality of the fruit. The importance of trim- 

 ming the bushes up to sirigle stems to im- 

 prove the fruit and facilitate clean culture, 

 instead of suffering two hundred and fifty 

 suckers to shoot up all round into a dense 

 brush heap, is very obvious to tliose who 

 have tried both. 



