and on the Dairy Husbandry. 119 



quent bleedings are said to improve the appearance and quality of the 

 flesh, and to prevent diseases from plethora, to which calves are sub- 

 ject, even when not fed so high, and still more so, when they are. A 

 large piece of chalk should be hung up in the box, which the calf will 

 lick occasionally. This contributes nothing to the whiteness of the veal, 

 but it amuses the animal, promotes the secretion of saliva, and corrects 

 that acidity in the stomach which might otherwise be engendered, and 

 which often takes place. A cow calf is reckoned the best for veal. 

 If a bull calf is suckled, he ought to be cut when about a week old. 

 This, it is said, retards its growth, but it renders the veal whiter and 

 better. On the whole, by this mode of treatment, calves are kept 

 clean, quiet, warm and dry, the veal they furnish is excellent, and 

 they are soon ready for the market *. This plan is certainly prefer- 

 able to the practice of stupifying them with spirits, or with laudanum, 

 so common in other places, where a different system is pursued. 



4. Dairy Farms. 



On the importance of the Dairy Husbandry. The management of 

 the dairy, is certainly a most important branch of rural industry, for 

 when land is in pasture, or appropriated for the feeding of cows, a 

 greater revenue can be drawn from it, than from any other mode by 

 which the pasture can be consumed. 



It has been stated on high authority, and on sure data, that the 

 quantity of herbage that will add 112 Ibs. to the weight of an ox, will 

 enable a dairy cow to yield 450 gallons, or nearly 900 Scots pints of 

 milk. That quantity of milk will yield from twenty-two to twenty- 

 four stones, or about 385 Ibs. imperial of full milk cheese ; or if made 

 into butter, it will yield 170 Ibs., and the butter-milk will bring a 

 penny per pint. This is at the rate of nearly three and a-half pounds 

 of cheese, or one and a-half pound butter, besides the value of the 

 sour- milk, for each pound of beef, raised from an equal quantity of 

 herbage. 



Another proof of the superior advantages of dairy produce arises, 

 from the much greater advance in its price, in comparison with that 

 of grain, or the other ordinary produce of land, and which will pro- 

 bably continue in nearly the same proportion. 



The average advance on the price of grain, since 1770, does not ex- 

 ceed 50 per cent., while cheese has increased from 200 to sometimes 

 more than 300 per cent., and butter from 300 to more than 500 per 

 cent., above what it gave 65 years ago. Even butcher meat has not 

 advanced nearly in the same ratio as dairy produce. 



2. On the Climate, Soil and Circumstances, best calculated for 

 a Dairy Stock. When the climate is damp, and the soil of so ad- 

 hesive a nature, that the growth of natural herbage is somewhat luxu- 

 riant, though it be not of the very best quality, yet it is favourable to 

 this branch of husbandry ; for it is well known, that a dairy cow pro- 



* Statistical Account of Scotland, vol. viii. p. 199, vol. ix. p. 384, and, in 

 particular, vol. xix. p. 495, where an account of this mode is given, by a re- 

 spectable country gentleman, the late Mr Paterson of Castle Huntly. 



