190 THE dairyman's maxual. 



the blood in an almost j)ure state. The cow was finally 

 slaughtered as an incurable. If a heifer becomes fat on 

 liberal feeding, instead of enlarging her general growth 

 and retaining the most desirable form, she should be dis- 

 carded from the herd. It is one of the valuable uses of 

 the method of training heifers, that as they develop by 

 age and growth their future character becomes indicated. 

 AVhen the heifer approaches the period of calving, the 

 udder and teats are frequently handled, and she is made 

 famiUar with the milk pail and the operation of milking. 

 When she comes into the stable a cow there is no trouble 

 with her. 



The training of heifers for their duties in the dairy 

 should be a constant care of the dairyman. Vicious ani- 

 mals, which kick, hold up their milk, suck themselves, 

 and practice the other usual vices of disorderly cows, are 

 all made so by want of, or misdirected, training. The 

 first lesson the calf learns should be affection for its 

 owner, fearlessness, and docility. Having never been 

 maltreated it has no sense of fear and accepts the atten- 

 tions of its owner without alarm. Receiving nothing 

 but kindness and its food from him, it is always ready 

 to meet him with eagerness, and soon learns to come 

 at his call. Its natural instincts are even readily con- 

 trollable, because its acquired docility accustoms it to 

 give way to the management of its owner, and it never 

 practices those' troublesome vices which are intolerable 

 in a dairy. It becomes in every respect a domesticated 

 animal, and to attain this result, with all the comfort 

 and advantages it involves, should be the constant care 

 of the dairyman whose crop of calves is being har- 

 M'ested. Kindness and gentleness in the owner are in- 

 dispensable to these virtues in his cattle. 



