148 GENTLE TREATMENT. 



slow to develop their best qualities ; and no cow reaches 

 her prime till the age of five or six years. 



The extreme importance of care and attention to 

 these points cannot be over-estimated. The wild cows 

 grazing on the plains of South America are said to give 

 only about three or four quarts a day at the height of 

 the flow ; and many an owner of large herds in Texas, it 

 is said, has too little milk for family use, and sometimes 

 receives his supply of butter from the New York 

 market. There is, therefore, a constant tendency to dry 

 up in milch cows ; and it must be guarded against with 

 special care, till the habit of yielding a large quantity, 

 and yielding it long, becomes fixed in the young animal, 

 when, with proper care, it may easily be kept up. 



If gentle and mild treatment is observed and perse- 

 vered in, the operation of milking appears to be one of 

 pleasure to the animal, as it undoubtedly is ; but if an 

 opposite course is pursued, if, at every restless move- 

 ment, caused, perhaps, by pressing a sore teat, the animal 

 is harshly spoken to, she will be likely to learn to kick 

 as a habit, and it will be difficult to overcome it ever 

 afterwards. To induce quiet and readiness to give 

 down the milk freely, it is better that the cow should 

 be fed at milking-time with cut feed, or roots, placed 

 within her easy reach. 



I have never practised milking more than twice a 

 day, because in spring and summer other farm-work 

 was too pressing to allow of it; but there is no doubt 

 that, for some weeks after calving, and in the height 

 of the flow, the cows ought, if possible, to be milked 

 regularly three times a day at early morning, noon, and 

 night. Every practical dairyman knows that cows thus 

 milked give a larger quantity of milk than if milked 

 only twice, though it may not be quite so rich ; and in 

 young cows, no doubt, it has a tendency to promote the 



