stipplying Milk for the Poor. 161 



price of bread. Compared with butcher's meat it is one-sixth ; and as a beverage 

 and substitute for malt liquor, I conceive it to be a fourth ; and it is certainly 

 better adapted to the labourer than any other liquor, from its being of a slower 

 digestion. 



Viewing it as it concerns the public, milk affords the largest supply of victual 

 from the least consumption of food. A great proportion of the food, which is so 

 admirably adapted for producing milk, is not applicable to the feeding of fat 

 cattle. 



I conceive that the food necessary for a cow in full milking will not exceed one- 

 third of what is requisite in feeding for the butcher, but it is in weight as 3 to 1 ; 

 but allowing the difference in the quantity of food to be less than what I have 

 taken it at, a milch cow, nine months or 270 days in milk, at 10 quarts in the two 

 meals, would give 2700 quarts, or 5400 pounds weight of milk. Were the same 

 animal fattened to 30 stone (of 8!b. per stone) a quarter, with an allowance of five 

 quarters for the carcase and fat, the whole weight would be only 1200 pounds; 

 and would be to milk only in the proportion of 1 to 4. 



Supposing the average produce of each acre of wheat to be 24 Winchester 

 bushels, at 6olb. per bushel ; the actual nourishment derived from one bushel will 

 be 371b. of first flour and 14 of two inferior sorts, S^lb. of bran, allowing half a 

 pound for waste, making in the whole 6olb. or 12241b. of flour per acre ; so that 

 it would require four acres to give the weight of flour equal to the weight of milk 

 given by a single cow in 9 months,* 



The advantages of a supply of milk for the use of the lower orders is great in 

 every point of view; and, I trust, the discussion of the subject, and the bringing 

 of it before the public, may be the means of extending the benefits which I ha^e 



* To show the gain of victual to the public, when compared with bread, the article of first 

 necessity, we will state the total product of milk up to the last week in May, when the 30 cows 

 had yielded forty-five thousand quarts of milk, equal in weight to ninety thousand pounds. The 

 green food consumed, (oil-cake and chaff not taken into the calculation), supposing twenty tons 

 to be the average of green crop per acre, would be less than four acres, but say five. Twelve 

 hundred and twenty-four pounds being the product of an acre of wheat when made into bread. 

 It would require seventy three acres of wheat to yield ninety thousand pounds of bread. Thus 

 sixty-eight acres are gained for other purposes upon a comparative scale between the product of 

 milk and bread. 



VOL. v. Y 



