MASS. BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 505 



without a suspicion, until this trial, that she had not paid her 

 keeping. 



Dr. Anderson, the distinguished Scotch writer on the dairy, 

 mentions an instance of one cow, from whose milk no butter 

 could be made. She was purchased of a farmer who kept a 

 large dairy, by a person who had no other cow, and thus the 

 discovery was made. Thrown into the general mass, her milk 

 had been useless, and her keeping a dead loss to the farmer. 

 Hence the Doctor judiciously recommends the setting, in a 

 separate pan, the milk of every cow, to ascertain its quality, 

 that such as give meagre milk may be fattened and sent to the 

 slaughter-house. And we would urge it upon every farmer to 

 test all his cows, both as regards the quality and quantity of 

 milk they severally yield, confident as we are that by this 

 simple process, and disposing of such cows as he thus finds 

 cannot be profitably kept, the profits of his dairy will be in- 

 creased, and the character of his cows be trausmitted with more 

 certainty to their offspring. 



By adopting a mode of offering premiums for butter and for 

 cheese, similar to the one formerly made by the Essex Society, 

 there would be the strongest inducement, — so far as agricul- 

 tural societies are concerned, — held out to the farmer to keep 

 only the best of milch stock, A condition might also be in- 

 serted, if it should be deemed advisable, that the cows, whose 

 butter was entered for premium, should be of the competitor's 

 own raising ; but, as in some of our counties the breeding of 

 neat stock is practised only to a limited extent, a uniform con- 

 dition of this kind, for all the societies, would not seem to be 

 advisable. Let the quantity of butter and of cheese for the 

 dairying part of the year, be required to be stated, as well as 

 the process of making, as conditions precedent to the award, 

 and let the standard be so high as to encourage only the keep- 

 ing of the best herds of cows, and we believe that our societies 

 will be aiding, most effectively, to produce an improvement in 

 the dairy stock of the State. 



In conclusion, the committee, being instructed to ascertain 

 and report whether any and what measures for milk, are pre- 

 scribed by statute, would say, that by the act of the Legisla- 

 64 



