746 MASS. BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



calves ; but if she is suffered to dry early with her first calf, 

 she cannot, usually, be made to hold out afterwards. 



In selecting cows for the dairy, let the farmer take them from 

 his own heifer calves ; he knows his choicest cows, and the 

 sire of his calves. Select those that have the most prominent 

 traits that have been mentioned for good cows, for no one will 

 have them all, and put them to good keeping; that food that 

 will cause the fleshy parts to expand, and the secerning system 

 to fill the cellular tissue with a normal degree of fat, will 

 cause the lactescent vessels to enlarge, and be prepared to per- 

 form their functions, when the heifers come into the dairy, 

 which ought to take place when they are two or two and a 

 half years old. 



A cow is considered to be in her prime from four to six 

 years old, and will continue good till she is ten or twelve — 

 many holding out much longer, if they have been well man- 

 aged. It is with the brute, as with man ; some fail early, 

 while others continue to perform the functions of life to a 

 much greater age ; both depending, in a great measure, upon 

 the manner they are treated. There cannot be too much said 

 upon the management of heifer calves that are designed for 

 the dairy. " It is of the greatest importance," says Professor 

 Johnson, "for dairy cows to be fed, from their earliest days, on 

 food that has a tendency to produce the milky secretion, and 

 to be kept on that description of food when they are not in 

 milk." By continued poor keeping, you can change a gentle, 

 kind, docile, fine, silky-haired cow, to a coarse, long-haired, 

 rough-skinned creature, better fitted for the race ground than 

 the dairy. Cows that come out from a long winter, spring- 

 poor, as the saying is, without flesh and a little strength, with 

 their milk veins almost converted into ligaments, will be of 

 little profit to the owner that year. The dairyman that under- 

 takes to keep twice as many cows as he has fodder, makes a 

 grand mistake ; half well fed will give more* profit than double 

 the number half fed. Animals, by domestication and kind 

 treatment, can be changed almost entirely, in their physical 

 forms, as well as in their dispositions. The little shrub can, 

 by continvied cultivation, be made the thrifty and beautiful 

 tree. Mr. Aiton says, "the urus of Lithuania is nearly as large 



