36 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



Mr. Aiton and his predecessors had a very different and a 

 much more difficult task to perform. That delicate organiza- 

 tion, which is called into operation when the food taken into 

 the body is to be converted into milk, is much more difficult 

 to com])rehend or control. True, there is a certain physical 

 conformation indicative of a large capacity for secreting milk ; 

 but when we remember that this capacity violates all law, and 

 is as erratic as genius, we can comprehend how many diffi- 

 culties they labored under, who, in Scotland, endeavored to 

 establish a breed of milkers. They might secure the bony 

 structure, the quality of skin, the shape of the muscle, the 

 general outline, the form of udder most approved, and, after 

 all this, there might be some deep defect in the powers of 

 assimilating the food, in the glandular system, in the nervous 

 organization, which entirely destroyed the utility of the animal. 

 This accounts for the wide differences which exist in individuals 

 belonging to every well-known and long-established breed of 

 milkers, as the Ayrshires and Jerseys. Thousands of animals 

 are driven from Short-horn and Devon regions, so nearly alike 

 in weight and size and shape, that the law of their reproduc- 

 tion seems to be as fixed as that which gives to the casting the 

 shape of the mould, be it repeated times innumerable. But 

 no one can find a race of milkers, all brought up to a high 

 standard, and all capable of transmitthig that standard. We 

 approach it, but are often vexed at the unexpected failures. 



Now it would seem that the great rule to be observed in the 

 rearing of dairy stock, is not to interfere with this delicate 

 organization by the food furnished in early life. Why cannot 

 the system of a heifer be injured by food, so as to disorganize 

 her glandular functions,*as well as the system of a cow, which 

 can be forced into diseased action with the greatest ease; 

 which, in fact, requires constant care, lest in her business of 

 manufacturing milk she may take on disease ? Why may we 

 not, for instance, lay the foundation for garget, long before the 

 udder contains a drop of milk ? We do not feed a milch cow 

 as we do a fatting cow, unless we are willing to run the risk 

 of ruining her. For the wholesale statement so often made 

 that what produces milk will also produce fat, and vice versa, 

 is shown to be wholly unfounded by a comparison of the effect 



