ON MILCH COWS AND HEIFERS. 49 



COW has been in milk, and the season of the year ; but it is in a 

 great degree matter of constitution, some cows giving milk of 

 which butter cannot be made, and others giving milk the cream 

 of which needs scarcely a revolution of the churn to produce the 

 finest butter. Experiments made with reference to this point by 

 one of your Committee, have shown a difference in cows of 

 equally promising appearance, and giving like quantities of milk, 

 and fed in the same pasture, as great as 13 to 2. The improve- 

 ment to be sought for therefore is both in quantity and quality. 

 The Holderness stock has been always celebrated for extraor- 

 dinary quantities of milk ; the Alderney for the superior richness 

 of their milk. It is reasonable to believe, that a valuable im- 

 provement might be effected by crossing the finest animals of 

 two such kinds with each other. 



Your Committee with a \iew to furnish some standard for 

 their own estimation of the value of animals which might be 

 presented to them, and to excite a spirit of just emulation, 

 where emulation cannot fail to do good, and to show at the 

 same time what improvements may yet be hoped for, have been 

 at the pains to collect some facts, w4iich they beg leave to state. 

 They have obtained from some of the principal milk farmers 

 in the neighborhood of Salem their estimation of the average 

 amount yielded by each cow in their establishments during the 

 time they are in milk. Ichabod Nichols, whose farm is on the 

 Turnpike, where forty cows are kept, estimates it at five quarts 

 per day. E. Patterson on the Howes farm in Beverly, where 

 fifty cows are kept, at five quarts per day. Erastus Ware, with 

 an establishment of fifly cows on the Pickman farm, at four quarts 

 per day. These statements agree with those made by some of 

 the milk men in the vicinity of Boston. Mr. Nichols feeds 

 regularly in winter with vegetables, (preferring potatoes in a raw 

 state to other vegetables,) and Indian meaJ with the best of 

 English Hay. Mr. Patterson it is believed does the same. Mr. 

 Ware besides hay, with some vegetables and brewer's grain ; 

 but is of an opinion that the increased quantity of the milk will 

 not compensate for the increased expense of the feed, and there- 

 fore that he should be a loser by high feeding. Mr. Nichols is 



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