504 MASS. BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



food. The committee trust they do not entertain a groundless 

 hope that the premiums here offered will have claimants ; and 

 that in some future years, the trustees will be justified in con- 

 fining these premiums to cows yielding 10, 12, and 14 lbs. of 

 butter a week, for 26 weeks in the year." 



How mortifying the reflection, that after the lapse of nearly 

 thirty years, since this hope was expressed, it has failed to be 

 realized ; and for the reason, that the milch cows — not in 

 Essex only, but throughout the State — have not been im- 

 proved, agreeably with such sanguine expectations. We may 

 well stop to inquire, whether, by the agricultural community, 

 sufficient attention has been paid to the quality, as well as the 

 quantity of milk given by the cows ? It is feared that too 

 many of our farmers — and dairy farmers, too — have no other 

 test of a good cow, than the quantity of milk, as it measures in 

 the pail, without an inquiry whether that milk is of much more 

 value than the same quantity of water, which he could pump 

 from his well. This is not a matter of mere conjecture. We 

 are frequently informed of the disappointment of the owner in 

 the estimate he had formed of the value of one of his favorite 

 cows ; and it is believed that a careful examination would dis- 

 cover the comparative worthlessness for butter of many cows, 

 now held in high estimation. 



A few years since, one of the committee had a farm, which 

 was leased on shares, appropriated to dairy purposes, on which 

 25 cows were kept, which were owned in common by himself 

 and the tenant. Accidental circumstances induced a compari- 

 son between a cow which was considered the most valuable in 

 the herd, because she yielded a large supply of milk, and a 

 cow which had been purchased at a small price. Repeated 

 trials were had by the lactometer, and the result was that the 

 milk of the cow which had been held in high estimation, 

 afforded cream of only 4-10 of an inch in thickness; and the 

 same quantity of the milk of the low-priced cow gave cream of 

 the thickness of 1 and 4-10 of an inch, and of a much yellower 

 color than that of the other. The cheap cow was in reality 

 the most valuable animal. The cow which had been so 

 highly esteemed, had been in the dairy two years or more, 



