THE FEEDING OF MILCH CATTLE 313 



differences are often observed with shorter intervals 

 between the milkings, they are often not applicable 

 to practice. As has been proved, the holding 

 capacity of the milk cistern accommodates itself 

 in time to the amount of milk which the animal 

 can give, and so there ceases to be any considerable 

 damming of the milk. From practical experience 

 it has been shown that milking three times a day 

 only gives 6-7% more milk than milking twice. 

 Whether this increase in the amount of milk will 

 repay the cost of the extra milking, carriage, etc. 

 must be answered for each case separately. With 

 freely milking cows which give good yields and where 

 the milk can be sold to advantage, it may be possible 

 to milk four times a day with profit, but under 

 ordinary circumstances twice, or at most three times, 

 is usually enough. 



Frequent milking has an influence also upon the 

 composition of the milk in that the milk is richer 

 the shorter the time that has elapsed since the 

 previous milking. The very numerous investiga- 

 tions which have been carried out on morning, 

 midday, and evening milk leave no doubt on this 

 point. When, for example, a large herd were 

 milked at 4 in the morning, then at 12.30 p.m., and 

 in the evening at 7 p.m., the following results 

 were obtained : — 



The morning milk . . 11-51 % dry matter, and 2-79% fat 

 „ midday „ . . 11*79 „ n n 3'°S » » 



„ evening „ . . 12-44,, „ „ 3-76,, » 



