PRINCIPLES OF IMPEOVINii DOMESTIC ANIMALS. 



363 



condition as to flesh, she often needs more food than 

 she gets, even if no milk was formed. Under such 

 circumstances, the secretion of milk is so small as to 

 be scarcely worth the trouble of milking, to say noth- 

 ing of the care and keep of the cow. So important 

 is generous feeding regarded in the best dairy coun- 

 ties of New York, that in addition to all the fresh 

 grass they will eat, cows are fed all the whey furnish- 

 ed by their milk when made into cheese, instead of 

 feeding it to swine. E.xperience proves that no other 

 animal pays so large a profit on a httle extra food as 

 a good cow; and instances of increasing the quantity 

 of milk by diminishing the number of cows kept, are 

 not uncommon. Where the seasons are so variable 

 and the growth of grass is so often arrested by pro- 

 longed dry weather, it is almost impossible to adjust 

 one's live stock of any kind to the amount of feed 

 available for their support A farm yields twice as 

 much pa-sturage and hay one year as it does in an- 

 other; and in the one case it will be overstocked 

 with cattle, and in the other it will have Jess than 

 the highest profit demands. Taking the mean be- 

 tween extremes, it is generally less disadvantageous 

 to have too little than too much stock. 



In this way alone can deterioration be avoided, 

 unless one wisely supplements his grazing and mead- 

 ow lands by growing root crops, corn, peas, or other 

 specialities, for the consumption of domestic animals. 

 Good sense in selecting cows and bulls for breeding 

 purposes, proper milking, and liberalfeeding are the 

 most essential elements in the improvement of dairy 

 cows, and in rendering them profitable. By going 

 into a dairy district where cows have been reared and 

 kept many years for producing the leading staple of 

 its inhabitants, one may select fair breeding animals 

 of both sexes, from which an excellent herd of milk- 

 ers may be grown in a distant locality. There are 

 dairies in ^Herkimer county, N. T., which average 

 over five hundred pounds of cheese per cow per an- 

 num; and premiums have been awarded on reports 

 of over seven hundred pounds per cow in a year. 

 The dairy business is practiced with equal skill and 

 success in a number of other counties in this State; 

 and the yield in milk, butter and cheese has been on 

 the increase for any given number of cows, and prob- 

 ably from any given amount of food, for many years. 

 Dairy stock is warmly stabled in winter, and every 

 pains is taken to keep cows in good condition. In 

 some few instances they are milked three times in 

 twenty-four hours; and where the secretion of milk 

 is very copious, this is better than to milk but twice. 

 Where the gland is much distended, not only the 



watery particles of the milk, but somo of the butter 

 and casein will be absorbed into the general circula- 

 tion before milking. That the two functions of se- 

 cretion and absorption may be clearly understood 

 by common husbandmen, as taught by the best phy- 

 siologists, we will briefly explain them as they exist 

 in the mammary gland. 



Each gland is composed of a number of glandules, 

 or little glands, connected together by a fibrous tis- 

 sue in such a manner as to allow a certain degree of 

 mobility of the parts, one upon another. These 

 glandules are connected by the ramifications of lac- 

 tiferous tubes, which intermingle with one another in 

 such a manner as to destroy the simplicity and uni- 

 formity of their divisions, though they rarely inoscu- 

 late. The milk-bearing tubes, or terminal ducts that 

 approach the teat or nipple, are ten or twelve in num- 

 ber, and dilate into numerous reservoirs, which in 

 the udder of the cow, hang down like pears or gourds, 

 and upholding their contents, take the pressure off 

 the sphincter muscle that closes the natural outlet 

 of the gland. At these reservoirs there commence 

 numerous ducts, five or six at each, which pene- 

 trate into the glandules and serve to drain the same 



Fig. 1 . Termination of por- Fig. 2. Ultimate follicles of 



tion of niilk-fluct in a cluster mammary gland, with their 



of follicles : from a mercmijil Becreting cells, a, a ; 6, 6, the 



injection; enlarged four times. nuclei. 



as milk is separated from arterial blood. Of all se- 

 cretions, milk bears the closest resemblance to blood, 

 whose coloring. matter is kept back as the fluid passes 

 through the walls of cells into milk-foUicles. A part 

 of the water that passes into the milk-forming glan- 

 dules, or follicles, is immediately absorbed, by which 

 operation the nutritive power of this secretion is 

 much improved for the benefit of the young. In 

 forming a quart of milk in an hour, as is often done 

 in the udder of a cow, there must be considerable 

 activity in three sets of vessels. 1st, in the arteries, 

 whose minute branches are spread all over and through 

 the glandules in which milk is first found. 2d, in the 

 milk-cells, called follicles, which receive arterial blood, 

 almost entire, save its coloring matter, and transform 

 it into milk. 3d, in the absorbent cells, also in con- 

 tact with the milk cells, which imbibe from the latter 

 water, and perhaps other ingredients not required in 

 so large proportion in milk as in blood. The readi- 



