44 THE DAIRY OF THE FARM. 



liberality of treatment. On the subject of patience and 

 gentleness in dealing with the cow, it may be well to add, 

 that they are especially needed in dealing with a heifer 

 rearing her first calf, and just commencing to be milked. 



(2.) Health. The cow goes with young 9 months and a 

 week, or thereabouts. Of 760 cows, whose period was 

 observed by Lord Spencer, 600 calved between the 279th 

 day and the 291st day, and the births were pretty evenly 

 distributed over the intervening period, reaching a maximum 

 about the 284th day. 314 cows calved before the 284th 

 day, and 310 cows calved after the 285th day ; and it is 

 noteworthy that a larger proportion of bull calves came at 

 late births, and a larger proportion of cow calves at the 

 earlier births. Thus of 381 calves dropped after the 284th 

 day, 233 were males and 148 females ; and of 294 calves 

 dropped before the 284th day, 135 were male and 159 were 

 female. On the whole, the number of males produced by 

 this very large number of cows was considerably above that 

 of females. 



Of abortion it must suffice to say, that while sometimes 

 owing to ill-health at the time of its occurrence, it is 

 probably often produced by eating ergotted grass in autumn ; 

 and as a security against this it is well to let the cows run 

 rather on aftermath at that season than on imperfectly 

 grazed pasturage where bents and seed stems of various 

 grasses are generally found exhibiting the ergotted condi- 

 tion.* In the ordinary practice of our dairy districts, 



* Ergot is a diseased state of the seed of rye and certain grasses a mal- 

 formation of growth, owing to the attack of a parasitic fungus. It is a 

 popular belief, generally ridiculed, however, that the keeping of a donkey 

 or a goat with the herd will hinder this slipping of the calf. It is possible 

 that a preference of this animal for the drier bents liable to ergot, may be 

 at once the explanation and the justification of this belief. 



