Chap. II. RUTA BAGA CULTURE. 123 



four of them pretty fit, their share cannot be very 

 small. Every one knows, what good food, how 

 mjch meal and iailk are necessary to sows which 

 have pigs. I have no milk, for my cow has not 

 3'et calved. And, then, what a chance concern this 

 is ; for, the sows may perversely have pigs at the 

 time when the cows do not please to give milk ; or, 

 rather, when they, poor things, without any fault 

 of theirs, are permitted to go dry, which never 

 need be, and never ought to be the case. I had 

 a cow once that made more than two pounds of but- 

 ter during the week, and had a calf on the Saturday 

 night. Cows always ought to be milked to the very 

 day of their calving, and during the whole of the 

 time of their suckling their calves. But, " suffi- 

 cient unto the day is the evil thereof" Let ue 

 leave this matter 'till another time. Having, how- 

 ever, accidentally mentioned cows, 1 will just ob- 

 serve, that, in the little publication of Mr. Cramp, 

 mentioned above, as having been printed by the 

 Board of Agriculture, it was stated, and the proof 

 given, that his single cow gave him, clear profit, for 

 several successive years, more than fifty pounds 

 sterling a year, or upwards of two hundred and twen- 

 ty dollars. This was clear profit ; reckoning the 

 food and labour, and taking credit for the calf, the 

 butter, and for the skim milk at a penny a quart 

 only. Mr. Cramp's was a Sussex cow. Mine were 

 of the Alderny breed. Little, small boned things ; 

 but, two of my cows, fed upon three quarters of an 

 acre of grass ground, in the middle of my shrubbery, 

 and fastened to pins in the ground, which were 

 shifted twice a day, made three hundred pounds of 

 butter from the 28th of March to the 27th of June. 

 This is a finer country for cattle than England 5 and 

 yet, what do 1 see ! 



133. This difficulty about feeding sows with 

 young pigs and weaning pigs, is one of the greatest 

 of hinderances to improvement ; for, after all, what 



