888 CATTLE. 



stimulus. If the season and the convenience of the farmer will 

 admit of it, she will be better at pasture, at least for some hours in 

 the day, than altogether confined to the cow-house. 



At a somewhat uncertain period before she calves, there will be 

 a new secretion of milk for the expected little one ; and un^er the 

 notion of somewhat recruiting her strength, in order better to enable 

 her to discharge her new duty, but more from the uniform testimo- 

 ny of experience that there is danger of local inflammation and of 

 general fever, garget in the udder, and puerperal fever, if the new 

 milk descends while the old milk continues to flow, it has been usual 

 to let the cow go dry for some period before parturition. Fai-mers 

 and breeders have been strangely divided as to the length of this 

 period. It must be decided by circumstances. A cow in good con- 

 dition may be milked much longer than a poor one. Her abundance 

 of food renders a period of respite almost unnecessary ; and all that 

 needs to be taken care of is that the old milk should be fairly gone 

 before the new milk springs. In such a cow, while there is danger 

 of inflammation from the sudden rush of new milk into a bag already 

 occupied, there is also considerable danger of indurations and tumors 

 in the teats from the habit of secretion being too tong suspended. 

 The emaciated and overrailked beast, however, must rest awhile bo- 

 fore she can again advantageously discharge the duties of a mother. 



Were the period of pregnancy of equal length at all times and 

 in all cows, the one that has been well fed might be milked until 

 within a fortnight or three weeks of parturition ; while a holiday 

 of two months should be granted to the poorer beast ; but as there 

 is much irregularity about this, it may be prudent to take a month 

 or five weeks as the average period. 



The process of parturition is one that is necessarily accompanied 

 by a great deal of febrile excitement ; and therefore when it neai'ly 

 approaches, not only should a little care be taken to lessen the 

 quantity of food, and to remove that which is of a stimulating 

 nature, but a mild dose of physic, and a bleeding regulated by the 

 condition of the animal, will be very proper precautionary measures. 



A moderately open state of the bowels is necessary at the period 

 of parturition in the cow. During the whole time of pregnancy 

 her enormous stomachs sufficiently press upon and confine the womb ; 

 and that pressure may be productive of injurious and fatal conse- 

 quences, if at this period the rumen is suff"ered to be distended by 

 unnutritious food, or the manyplus takes on that hardened state 

 to which it is occasionally subject. Breeders have been sadly neg- 

 ligent here. 



NATURAL LADOR. 



The springing of the udder, or the rapid enlargement of it from 

 the renewed secretion of milk — the enlargement of the external 



