THE UNITED ; KINGDOM. 119 



the best butter families under all circumstances. Never fight against accomplished 

 facts. He who fails to avail himself of all which his neighbors have accomplished in 

 breeding, by neglect to use the blood that has been thoroughly developed, on the 

 ground that he ' ' probably now has as good," will disastrously fail in his undertakings. 

 It is simply blind egotism that must inevitably meet its fate. 



Treatment of Jersey calves. Under this head each breeder would write a different 

 treatise. No two probably agree, and while 1 claim no special fitness to discourse 

 upon this topic, and thereforo'have no right to speak authoritatively, still, as I have 

 some distinct notions upon the subject, I herewith submit them, hoping that by an 

 * interchange of views those methods that are the best may be made certain by a com- 

 parison of the experience of different breeders. 



The milk of a very rich Jersey cow is far too rich for her calf. If she has a large 

 flow immediately after calving, the calf will only take a portion, and that the poorest 

 in quality, and be comparatively safe if left with its dam for two or three days. If 

 the cow is slow in "coming to her milk," and what the calf gets is above the average 

 richness, it will, in many instances, be as fatal to the calf as a dose of poison. Every 

 year scores of Jersey calves have "died very mysteriously," when the truth was, the 

 . milk of their respective dams was too rich for them. When a Jersey cow drops her 

 calf, remove it immediately, if the cow is in health. If the cow is nervous, and frets 

 badly, fence the calf off in one corner of the box, so that the cow can reach it and 

 comfort herself with it. 



Feeding the calf. Give a pint of the milk first taken from its dam every few hours 

 a few times, milking every drop of the remainder from the udder at each time. After- 

 wards feed about two quarts of the milk first taken from its dam (as that is much the 

 poorer in quality) night and morning. In four or five days add a quart of hot (have 

 all at 100) skimmed milk to each feed, increasing the skimmed milk and lessening 

 the whole milk as the calf thrives until all the whole milk is withdrawn by the 

 twentieth day, if the calf is in vigorous health. Always have the milk fed to the 

 calf at blood heat. Keep good, bright, clear, sweet rowen, and also good hay, by the 

 calf from nearly the first. Put a fresh cut sod by the calf every few days. If the 

 calf is costive, give the milk cooler; if too loose, give the milk at as high a tempera- 

 ture as the calf will take it, and in much smaller quantities. Give one-third the 

 quantity of hot milk, and give two raw eggs, broken into its milk, night and morn- 

 ing, or the eggs alone. If the diarrhoea does not readily yield, give a tablespoonful of 

 castor oil and the same of olive oil, with a teaspoonful of paregoric, mixed in a pint of 

 hot milk. Sometimes, in desperate cases, a light feed of pure beef tea two or three 

 times, or even longer, in place of the milk food, will act favorably. Less food and 

 hot, with little or no medicine, is the general rule. Do not resort to medicine too 

 hastily. The eggs rarely fail. Never give any medicine if it can be avoided. Al- 

 ways keep on hand the oils and paregoric, and also pulverized chalk and pulverized 

 charcoal. Follow the oils with a teaspoonful of pulverized chalk in each feed of milk 

 until the symptoms disappear, substituting the charcoal occasionally. 



Calf -fatting. If calves are wanted to be always fat and sleek, in a fit condition to 

 sell to the butcher or to persons of no practical experience, who want to see things 

 looking fine, and the breeder cares nothing for the value at the churn of the de- 

 veloped animals, feed oil-meal boiled for hours in a large quantity of water until the 

 liquid is of about the consistency of thin mucilage ; or feed fine corn-meal, or any- 

 thing else that will produce fat. If the object of the breeder is to have his young 

 things " fill the eye ?; of the inexperienced, and to sell them to such persons for long 

 prices when young, always keep them fat and sleek. If the object of the breeder is 

 the honorable one of producing an animal the superior of its progenitors, or at least 

 their equal, to sacrifice any prospect of immediate gain to the production of the best 

 practical cow possible at the churn, he will pursue a far different course. Feeding 

 young things for present effect on the eye of the inexperienced is necessarily fatal to 

 their largest future usefulness. To feed any substance especially calculated to pro- 

 duce, fat "to a bull, or at any time before she comes in milk, to a heifer, will induce 

 the habit of laying on fat, which will continue through all its subsequent career. The 

 younger the animal is when this bad habit of making flesh and fat begins, the more 

 controlling it will be, and the more likely the animal will be to .transmit that habit 

 to its offspring. 



Food, $c. Nothing should be feed to bulls more stimulating than good hay, and at 

 times a few oats, shorts, or both, with coarser food. Plenty of coarse hay, straw, and 

 grass even should be given at times. The digestive organs of a butter bull, especially 

 when young, should be taxed and distended precisely as should those of a female de- 

 signed to produce butter. Heifers should be fed on nothing but skimmed milk, grass, 

 rowen, hay, straw, in fact, everything to distend and tax their digestive organs, and 

 with nothing more stimlating before they drop their first calf than oats or shorts 

 or similar food. The rule for keeping young heifers to make good coats is rather ex- 

 travagantly expressed by saying, "A" heifer should have a paunch large enough to 



