▼OL. xvm. no. ag. 



AND HORTICULTURAL REGISTER. 



The number of cows kept for the purpose of sup- 

 lying the iuhabitants of the metropolis and its eu- 

 irons with milk is about 12,000. They are, witli 

 ery few exceptions, of the short-horn breed — the 

 [olderness or Yorkshire cow, and almost invaria- 

 ly with a cross of tlie improved Durham blood. — 

 'he universal preference given to this breed by 

 ich a body of men, differing materially on many 

 ■anches of the treatment of cattle, is perfectly sat- 

 factory as to their value, and that on three dis- 

 act points. 



First, as to the quantity of milk. This we need 

 >t press, for the enemies of the short horns have 

 !ver contested this point. There is no cow which 

 ys so well for what she consumes in the quantity 

 milk that she returns. 



This, however, is not all, though it may be the 

 incipal thing which enters into the calculation of 

 B metropolitan dairymen. 



The name of the new milk has something very 

 sasant about it, but it is an article which rarely 

 ikes its appearance at the breakfast or tea table 

 the citizen. That which is got from the cow at 

 fht is put by until the morning, and the cream 

 mmed off, and then a little water being added, it 

 sold to the public as ihe morning's milk. The 

 i morning's milk is also put by and skimmed, and, 

 ng warmed a little, is sold as the evening's milk. 

 is is the practice of uost or all of the little dai- 

 nen who keep their half a dozen cows ; and if 

 J were all, and with these people it is nearly all 

 public must not con, plain.: the milk may be 

 ■ered by the warm waler, but the lowering sys- 

 1 is not carried to any great extent, for there is 

 ride among them that their milk shall be better 

 n that of the merchants on a yet smaller scale, 

 3 purchase the article from the great dairies ; and 

 it generally is. The milk goes from the yard 

 he great dairy into the possession of th§ itine- 

 t dealers perfectly pure ; what is done with it 

 irwards, and to what degree it is lowered and 

 histicated, is known only to these retail mer- 

 nts. 



rhe proprietor of the large dairy is also a dealer 

 ream to a considerable extent among these peo- 

 ; he is also a great manufacturer of butter, for 

 Bust have milk enough to answer every demand 

 that demand is exceedingly fluctuating ; then 

 r necessary that the quality of the milk should 

 jood, in order that he may turn the overplus to 

 itable account in the fo'iin of cream or butter. 

 : employment of the short-horn cow, in all the 

 ies, is a convincing proof that her milk is not 

 loor as some have described it to be. 

 t is the practice in most of the dairies to fatten 

 iw as soon as her milk becomes less than four 

 •ts a day. They are rarely suffered to breed 

 le in the dairyman's possession. Tlie fact of 

 r being so often changed is a proof that while 

 :ow gives a remunerating quantity of milk for 

 rtain time, she is rapidly and cheaply fattened 

 ;he butcher as soon as her milk is dry. Were 

 h time or money employed in preparing her 

 he market, tliis system would not answer, and 

 Id m.t be so universally adopted. Fattening 

 milking properties can, therefore, Combine in 

 same animal, and they do so here. 

 Ir Laycock, however, does not adopt this as a 

 ;ral rule. The cows that are more than usu- 

 good milkers are suffered to take the bull 

 n in season. He always keeps some good 

 thorn bulls for this purpose. It sometimes 

 >ens that the cow will continue to give milk 



249 



until within a few weeks of calving ; and he judges, 

 and perhaps rightly, that this is a more profitable 

 course than to fatten and get rid of her, with the 

 probability that he might replace her by a cow that 

 Would give a less quantity of milk. 



The present market price of a good dairy cow is 

 about ao/., but the owners of the small dairies have 

 no little trouble to get a good cow. The jobbers 

 know that they will have a ready market for a con- 

 siderable portion of their lot in the yards of the 

 great cow-proprietors, and will probably get a lar- 

 ger price than the poorer man would give ; and 

 therefore Messrs Rhodes, or Laycock, or one or 

 two others, have always the first selection. Mr 

 Laycock has peculiar advantages for obtainino-o-ood 

 cattle. In addition to his dairy, he has sheds that 

 will contain five or six thousand beasts. A great 

 proportion of them halt on his premises for a day or 

 two before they are brought into the market. In 

 addition to the shilling a night which he charoes 

 for their standing, he claims the milk of the cows 

 as his perquisite. The cows are milked by his 

 people; he therefore knows beforehand the quanti- 

 ty of milk which each will yield, and he is thus en- 

 abled to cull the very best of the herd. The dairy- 

 men do not like a cow until she has had her third 

 or fourth calf, and is five or six years old ; she then 

 yields the greatest quantity of milk, and of the best 

 quality. Two gallons of milk per day is the quan- 

 tity which each cow is expected to yield in order 

 to be retained in the dairy. Taking one cow with 

 another, the average quantity obtained is rather 

 more than nine quarts. 



When she begins to fail in her milk, she is fat- 

 tened on oil cake, grains, and cut clover hay, and 

 disposed of. The dairyman calculates on gettin» 

 something more for her than when he first boughl 

 her, but sometimes he meets ivith an animal that 

 seems to verify the old prejudice against cows in 

 good condition. He bought her for known milking 

 properties, but she continues so poor that he in a 

 manner hides her in some cjrner of his dairy. She, 

 however, does her duty ; she yields him plenty of 

 milk, but that at length dries up; and he is unable, 

 try what he will, to get much flesh upon her bones, 

 and he sells her for less than half of her first price. 

 The quantity of milk yielded by all these cows, 

 at 9 quarts per day, amounts to 39,420,000 quarts, 

 or 27 quarts of genuine milk for each individual. 

 The retail dealers usually sell the milk for id. 

 per quart, after the cream is separated from it, and 

 then obtain 3s. per quart for the cream ; beside 

 this, a great deal ot water is mixed with tnis skim- 

 med milk ; so that we far underrate the price when 

 we calculate that the genuine milk sells at 6d. per 

 quart, which makes the money expended in milk in 

 the British metropolis amount to 985,500/. or nearly 

 a million pounds per annum. 



If we again divide the 985,500/. by 12,000, (the 

 number of cows,) we shall have the strange and 

 almost incredible sum of more than 62/. as th« mo- 

 ney produced by the milk of each cow. This is di- 

 vided among a variety of persons, and after all af- 

 fords but a scanty subsistence to many of them • 

 but it unequivocally proves the rascality that .per- 

 -ades some ol the departments of the concern. 



We acquit the wholesale dealers of any share in 

 the roguery, nor do we believe that their profits are 

 exorbitant. They sell the milk to the retail deal- 

 ers at a price that, according to Dr Middleton, 

 would enable them to clear (J4 per cent., without 

 adulterating the article— (we believe that 50 per 

 I cent would be nearer the truth.) When we con- 



sider the nature of the business, the distance the 

 milk girls have to travel, and the time wasted in 

 selling their little quantities from door to door, this 

 profit is not too great ; but when tliey abstract the 

 cream and add the water, and (unless they are much 

 bohed) some extraneous and abominable articles, 

 the actual profits will far exceed cent, per cent. In 

 the spring of the year, when London is full, the 

 consumption and the deterioration are greatest. In 

 the latter part of the year the cream is converted 

 into butter, and the buttermilk given to the hogs. 

 {To be continued.) 



Profitablb Farming.— Mr James Hill, of 

 West Cambridge, has taken in ninety eucceaaive 

 days,^ five thousand dollars in cash, in Boston mar- 

 ket, for articles raised on his farm. 



Mr Isaac Locke, of the same town, has raised 

 the present year, 30 barrels of quinces, which sold 

 on the ground for seven dollars a barrel ; he has 

 also S(dd in the same way, the present autumn, sev- 

 eral hundred barrels of Baldwin Apples at $3 per 

 barrel. 



The value of the Strawberries raised in West 

 Cambridge and sold in the Boston market, is more 

 than was taken thirty years ago for all the agricul- 

 tural products of the town put together. 



The apple orchards of this town are extensive. 

 Two hundred, three hundred, five hundred, and 

 sometimes a thousand barrels of carefully picked 

 apples are produced in a single year by one farmer. 



Mr George Pierce, of the same town, cultivates 

 only seven acres and yet he has taken in the mar- 

 ket for produce, the present season, as by memo- 

 randum kept, nearly or quite four thousand dollars. 



This season, very early, among his articles for 

 market, was about one third of an acre of the dan- 

 delion, wluch grows spontaneously in many mow- 

 ing fields ; these ho with some difiicnlty obtains 

 I from- the seed; but the crop turns out very profita- 

 ble. He had about an acre of strawberries, from 

 which upwards of two thousand boxes of that fruit 

 were picked last summer; these, at 37 1-2 to 50 

 cents a box, for which they readily sold in the 

 market, produced not a small profit on a single 

 acre. 



Mr Pierce also cultivated the raspberry, "which 

 thrives with great luxuriance. He thinks he could 

 make of the blachberry, which grows in the hedges 

 and amongst piles of decayed wood or rocks °in 

 neglected fields, a profitable s^rlicle. — Monthlu 

 Visitor. 



A Large Hog — We notice in several of our 

 exchange papers an account of a very extraordina- 

 ry hog raised in Wallinford, Vt. and sold for two 

 hundred dollars to a gentleman who desio-ns to 

 transport him over the country as a show. He 

 weighs, it is said, sixteen hundred pounds and is 

 three or four years old! He is a monster indeed. 

 We several years since saw a hog that weighed 

 1350 lbs., and was thought to exceed every thing 

 in the hog line. There are, at this time in thw 

 town, several very large hogs, one owned by Mr 

 Timothy Rix, which is estimated to weigh eight or 

 nine hundred pounds, and is not yet, we believe 

 eighteen months old. Should the creature be kept 

 until he reaches the age of « three or four years," 

 we doubt very much whether the Wallingford hog 

 would have much to brag of when compared with 

 the hog of Mr R.— Haverhill (JY. H.) Republican. 



