244 THE COMPLETE GRAZIER. BOOK n. 



sewage grass, succulent green crops, and so on, are not well adapted for 

 either purpose. Turnips, mangel, brewers' grains, cabbage, &c., will 

 increase the quantity of milk ; but its quality is best improved by 

 leguminous meals, ground oats and maize, which indeed may be fed to 

 milking cows with advantage along with grass through the summer and 

 autumn. 



It has been thought that food rich in oil and carbo-hydrates would 

 yield the richest milk ; this is not the case, however, for while such 

 carbonaceous food will increase the quantity, albuminoids or nitro- 

 genous food will best improve the quality. The carbonaceous food is 

 well represented in linseed, potatoes, and mangel, which are rich in 

 oil, starch, and sugar respectively ; and the nitrogenous food by broken 

 beans and peas, vetches, clover, and their allies. 



All the same, however, it is the quantity rather than the quality of 

 milk which the sooner responds to better and increased food, though 

 its quality too will improve when the limit of expansion as to quantity 

 has been reached in this way. Regular feeding on good food will yield 

 more satisfactor}^ results than that which is spasmodic and irregular. 

 The casein in milk varies less than the fats in amount, and while food 

 rich in carbonaceous ingredients is more likely to influence the quantity 

 of butter-fat in milk than nitrogenous food is to alter the proportion of 

 casein, either kind of food will most of all increase the quantity of milk 

 and the proportion of butter in it. Lean cows will yield less and 

 poorer milk than those which, without being actually fat, are kept in 

 good store condition, and the milk of all cows begins to decline in 

 quantity, and to improve in quality, after the first three months of 

 lactation. 



Careful investigations into the effect of changes of food on the yield 

 of milk have been repeatedly made, and the following conclusions may 

 be regarded as broadly and fairly established : Firstly, an increase 

 of food, sustained in both quality and quantity, increases the yield 

 of milk, and also the proportion of solids in it, and the better 

 milker a cow naturally is the greater will be the effect of the foods. 

 Secondly, the proportion of fat in the food bears no special relation to 

 the proportion of fat in the milk, but an increase of fat in the food 

 increases the yield of milk as a whole. Thirdly, while albuminoids 

 from their nature have been supposed to be specially adapted to increase 

 the proportion of casein in the milk, it has been found that a liberal use 

 of them tends more to an increase in the proportion of fat, for casein 

 varies very little as compared with fat in milk. Fourthly, the com- 

 position of milk as regards any one of its ingredients does not respond, 

 with anything like fidelity, to changes made in corresponding ingredients 

 in the food the cow eats, and scientific , feeding is followed by such 

 uncertain results, save with respect to the increase of the total yield of 

 milk, and, consequently, of the total solids in it, as to preclude the 

 laying down of any definite rule concerning it. The composition of 

 milk, in fact, primarily depends more on the breed, or on the capability, 

 of a cow than on the food she eats ; and the limit of milk produc- 

 tion is soon reached in a cow not naturally given to much milk, how- 



