124 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



how sensitive this organization is, and how necessary it is 

 that the animal economy should be in the healthiest possible 

 condition in a dairy cow, in order that she may produce the 

 greatest amount of milk, and the best milk from a given 

 amount of food. So I say that the first condition is, that the 

 animal economy should be in perfect order, if you expect to 

 derive from the dairy cow what you ought in order to make 

 her profitable. She must not, then, have too much exercise in 

 feeding ; she must not be exposed to intense heat ; she must 

 not be exposed to intense cold. When Mr. Cheever told us 

 that it was more difficult at a certain time of year to convert 

 cream into butter, I thought, as far as the cow herself was 

 concerned, I understood somewhat of the difficulty. I do not 

 think it is possible for a cow to be half frozen in midwinter, 

 her stable covered with frost, the thermometer far below the 

 freezing point, with nothing but ordinary hay before her, to 

 keep her animal economy in such condition that she can in 

 any possible way create milk that is capable of making good 

 butter. In order to keep herself alive, she is continually 

 drawing upon her fat-producing functions and organs, whether 

 they are devoted to the manufacture of cream, or of that 

 adipose matter which constitutes an accumulation of fat. She 

 is continually drawing upon these organs to keep herself 

 warm, and how can she make milk, under these conditions, of 

 such quantity and quality that she shall be a profitable dairy 

 cow? I do not think it is possible for a cow, which, for a 

 period of twenty-four hours is exposed to intense cold in the 

 winter time, to produce milk that is capable of being manu- 

 factured readily into butter. 



I think I am right in this.- When, therefore, I am told 

 that it is difficult to manufacture butter in the winter season, 

 I must know, in the first place, where the cow stands, and 

 how she is fed, which is called upon to make the cream out of 

 which that butter is to be made. If I find her exposed in a 

 cold stable, with the doors half open in the night-time, and 

 with wide cracks behind her, so that she is shivering in the 

 morning, I am pretty sure that the cream made by that cow 

 cannot be readily converted into butter. If you wish, there- 

 fore, to overcome the difficulties in the winter time which 

 have been so well set forth by the lecturer this afternoon, you 



