ON MILCH COWS AND HEIFERS. 51 



All these your Committee consider as well-attested facts and 

 of a very extraordinary character. The last gentleman has made 

 the breeding of animals his business for years, and has particu- 

 larly aimed at procuring a superior dairy stock, in which it must 

 be admitted he has succeeded in a most extraordinary degree. 

 Other animals of a very superior milking character in our own 

 country might be referred to, but it is not deemed necessary. 



The quality of milk, as your Committee have observed, varies 

 to a great extent. A gallon of milk is the proportion for a pound 

 of cheese, but the quality of th.e cheese must vary with the quality 

 of the milk. The quantity of milk required for a pound of butter 

 fluctuates between wide limits. Mr. Kent of Kent Island has 

 obtained a pound of butter in the autumn when his cows have 

 been long in milk from five or six quarts. Mr. Moses Newell of 

 West Newbury has been as fortunate. These were beer quarts. 

 This is a small proportion of milk and it would be desirable to 

 know the particular circumstances of the cows, their feed, and 

 the management of the milk. Curwen has found it to vary (and 

 something depended on the kind of food given) from eight to 

 nine, eleven, and fifteen quarts (wine measure) to a pound of 

 butter. These facts show a very great difference in the quality 

 of the milk of different cows and at different seasons. 



The famous Cramp Cow in England made six hundred and 

 seventy-five pounds of butter in a year. The Oakes Cow owned 

 in Danvers in one week made nineteen and a quarter pounds, and 

 for three months together upwards of sixteen pounds per week. 

 The Nourse Cow owned in Salem is said to have made twenty 

 pounds in one week and upwards of fourteen pounds per week 

 ibr four months. A cow imported by John Hare Powell in 

 Pennsylvania, who is entitled to the highest credit for his enter- 

 prise and liberal expenditures in order to introduce the valuable 

 stock of Improved Durham Short Horns into the country, made 

 at the rate of upwards of twenty pounds per week. A native 

 heifer, two years old, presented by Ladd Haseltine of Haverhill 

 last year for exhibition at the Cattle Show of this Society and 

 with her first calf, made at the rate of fifteen pounds of butter 

 per week ; and a cow owned by Samuel Henshaw of Springfield, 



