MILCn cows. 101 



quality and quantity, ■which can be attained on the part of this 

 society by an inflexible adherence to the reasonable conditions 

 regulating the show of stock. Besides the immediate result 

 here contemplated, a very proper secondary one would be the 

 educating of certain faculties of observation and exactitude, 

 which now our practical farmers seem deficient in. 



Close observers of cows tell us that there is more difference 

 in the quality than in the quantity of milk, — that out of 100 

 pounds of milk taken from a herd indiscriminately, one pound 

 less of butter will be made than from 100 pounds taken from 

 selected cows. As an illustration of this, we may mention the 

 Sussex or Cramp cow, that made 600 pounds of butter for 

 several years, out of at most but 20 quarts a day, and 

 the Oakcs cow 489 pounds out of at most 18 quarts. A few 

 years ago a Mr. Holbert, of New York, stated that one of His 

 best cows made as much butter as three of his poorer ones. 



As to the number of cows a farmer should keep, if the special 

 circumstances of domain are left out of the account, we should 

 advise that every one should keep as many as he can well feed 

 and keep in good health. The recommendation to have fewer 

 and keep these highly has been wisely adapted to a very loose 

 and careless style of cattle-raising and milk and butter pro- 

 ducing, but now that this wisdom is universally admitted and 

 considerably followed, we must avoid the folly of supposing that 

 there is no very ready way of increasing the number of well 

 kept animals. For we have ample reports of experiments in 

 soiling- cows, showing that by a proper regard to sowing rye, 

 oats and corn, as a green fodder for summer, and planting roots 

 for winter use, the number of well kept cows can at least be 

 doubled. The experience of our best dairymen shows that an 

 acre of land richly supplied with manure will yield a sufficient 

 quantity of sweet, nutritious fodder to keep four cows three 

 months. And this acre, more or less, of fodder need not be 

 together, but in the most convenient places, and on such spots 

 of soil as can be used for nothing else. 



The report of a Massachusetts agricultural society gives, as the 

 answer of a farmer to the question why he kept his eight cows 

 in the barn during the summer, that he gets more milk, more 

 manure, finds cows less troublesome than driving to pasture, and 

 that his whole farm is growing more productive every year. We 



