352 CATTLE-BREEDING. 



that cows will naturally remain, or can be kept, 

 in milk. There are some that can, with diffi- 

 culty, be kept in milk six months among the 

 "natives," and there are many blooded cows 

 which it is difficult to dry off after ten or eleven 

 months. The effect of systematic and long- 

 continued milking is always to increase the 

 period of lactation, and it should be attended 

 to even when, with a young cow, the milking 

 gives so little as to seem not worth the while. 

 It especially behooves the breeders of Short- 

 horn cattle, so long famous for their milking 

 qualities, to see that these are not neglected and 

 gradually lost. 



The time in which a cow will come in heat 

 again is somewhat uncertain. A healthy ani- 

 mal suckling her calf will ordinarily come in 

 in from forty to sixty days after calving. She 

 should be bred at once, as early in the heat as 

 convenient, and then put in a quiet place until 

 the excitation of the period of heat has quite 

 worn away. There is no more fertile cause of 

 failure of conception in healthy animals than 

 the excitement of the animal, either by care- 

 less driving, by allowing the cow to remain too 

 long with the bull, or to be served too often, or 

 by permitting other cows to fret her. A single 

 service early in the heat and immediate re- 

 moval to a quiet place is the desirable practice. 



With a vigorous bull, whose energies are not 



