208 MILK DIFFICULTIES AMATEURS. 



Keep short and meanly, and your milk and butter 

 produce will be in exact proportion, and the cow, 

 when dry, emaciated and of little worth. 



A farmer, some years since, kept eighteen cows 

 upon a common, and was often obliged to buy butter 

 for his family. The common was inclosed, and the 

 same person supplied his family amply with milk 

 and butter, from the produce of four cows well 

 kept. 



Great Milkers seldom carry any flesh upon their 

 bones, and are perhaps as seldom made fat, but they 

 pay as they go, and never retire in our debt. The 

 difficulties in cow-keeping are these the expense 

 of their food is considerable, more especially with 

 respect to any which must be purchased, and if the 

 produce be inconsiderable, it may be a losing con- 

 cern. You may be feeding a sparing milker into 

 flesh, and if you stint her, or allow only ordinary 

 food, you get neither flesh nor milk. 



Amateurs in this line should procure the largest 

 milkers, and I had almost said give them gold, could 

 they eat it. In this case, it may be depended on, 

 milk is always of more value than the best cow-food, 

 which is the jit ; and a cow, the natural tendency of 

 which is to breed milk, will convert all nourishment, 

 however dry and substantial, into that fluid ; in fact, 

 will require such solid kind of nourishment, to sup- 

 port her strength, and stimulate her to procreation, in 

 which otherwise, great milkers are very apt to be 

 deficient, and frequently to miss their bulling at the 

 proper season. But should corn be allowed, oats 

 are the most proper; they should be ground or 



