•vol,. XVIII. NO. 30. 



AND HORTICULTURAL REGISTER. 



nnioii consideration. 



From Touatt's Trnalise on Cattle. 



onrbody, our slow but steady progress will main-' The treatment of the coivs is sin.rular in some 

 depend— must form the future subject of our J respects. The cows are never untied while they 



are retained as milkers. Some of them nave stood 

 in the stall more than two years. Mr Laycock, on 

 the contrary, turns his cows out once every day to 

 drink from troughs in the yard, and they remain out 

 from half an hour to three hours, depending on the 

 weather and the season of the year. From the end 

 of June until Michaelmas, they are turned into the 

 fields from si.x o'clock in the morning until twelve 

 or one, and from two o'clock in the afternoon till 



THE LONDON DAIRIES. 



[Conliuued.l 

 Ihodes's dairy has been established more than 

 ty years, but some of the same family or name 

 e lived in that neighborhood nearly a century, 

 r Rhodes, farmer, near Islington," is referred 

 ly Dr Brocklesby, in his treatise on the murrain 

 ch prevailed among cattle about the middle of 

 last century. The writer of 'London Dairies,' 

 he British Farmer's Magazine for February, 

 I, gives a description of it, of which the follow- 

 is the substance : The surface on which the 

 dinifs are placed, is a gentle slope of two or 

 e acres, facing the east The sheds run in 

 direction of the slope, as well for the drain- 

 of the gutters as for the supply of water for 

 king, which will thus run from trough to trough 

 vhole length of the shed. The sheds are twen- 

 ir feet wide ; the side-walls being about eio-ht 



257 



development of the saccharine principle. It is to 

 be doubted, howpver, whether the cows obtain a 

 sufficient quantity of salt in this way. Some 

 should be given with the grains. 



The grain.= are usually given about three o'clock 

 in the morning, and two o'clock in the aftprnoon, 

 being a little befom the usual milking hours.— 

 Between the milkings they have green moat, as 

 long as the seascm will permit. Cut grass is a fa- 

 vorite and -excellent food; but where it can be 

 managed, the plan of Mr Laycock to li-t the cows 



about three o clock on the following morning, Mr I cut the grass for themselves' is a far superior one" 

 Rhodes scows have always water standing in the T.ares come in before the grass, and are afterwards 

 cisterns before them. „!,«„ alternately wuh it. In winter, turnip., po- 



We can readily conceive that, from the want of '' ' ' ' ' i > F 



e.xercise, and consequent cutaneous perspiration, 

 Rhodes's cows may give a somewhat greater (juan- 

 tity of milk than Laycjck's ; but on the other hand, 

 when we think of an animal tied in the corner of a 

 stall for twelve, or eighteen, or twentyfour months 

 together, we cannot help associating the idea of 

 disease, or tendency to disease, at least, with such 

 an unnatural stale of things; the feet and the di- 

 gestive system would particularly suffer, and 

 should suspect a little vitiation of all the secretions 



,rreetwme;tnes,<le-walls being about eight and some deterioration in the quality of the milk 

 high, with rising shutters for ventilation, and vVe should like to know the comparative stae of 

 s of glass let into iron frames for 1 ffht. The kpalth nfH.o „ • i • .. . ^^'"f"' ^"^t- siaie or 

 ;.. „r,,i„fl.t. ,.,:,i, „ „ 1 ., ■" ''"^'''tn o' the animals in the two establishments.— 



is nearly flat, with a gutter along the centre. The inclination of our opin 



1 row of stalls, each seven feet and a half wide, 

 I the sides, and adapted for two cows, which 

 ttached by chains to a ring that runs upon an 

 :ht rod in the corner of the stalls. A trough 

 inger, of the ordinary size of those used for 

 s, is placed at the top of the stall. Four of 



sheds are placed parallel and close to each 

 , and in the party-walls are openings a foot 



and four feet high, opposite to each cow 



lottom of these openings is about nine inches 

 r tlian the upper surface of the troughs, and 

 ins a one-foot square cast-iron cistern. 



ion would be strongly in 



favor of Mr Laycoek's plan. 



The principal food of the cows in both of these 

 and in all the dairies of the metropolis, is grains; 

 and as the brewing seasons are chiefly in autumn 

 and spring, a stock of grains is generally laid in at 

 those seasons for the rest of the year. The grains 

 are laid up in pits, lined with brick-work set in ce- 

 ment, from ton to twenty feet deep, and of any con- 

 venient size. They are firmly trodden down, and 

 covered with a layer of moist earth, eight or nine 

 inches thick, to keep out the rain and 'frost in v/m- 

 Ins tl>P wptnrfnr ^rinf . '. ' '"'""^" 1 1" ^ud the heat in suuimer. A cow consumes 



ins the water tor drinking; each CLstern serves about a bushel of these grains daily, the cost of 

 !Q cows that are placed opposite to each other. „hic|, j, fm,,, fn„rnpn,.p , fi i I 



wnicn IS iroin lourpence to nvepence, e.xciusive of 



carriage and preservation. The grains are, if pos- 

 sible, thrown into the pit while warm and in a state 

 of fermentation, and they soon turn sour, but they 

 are not liked the v/orse by cattle on that account ; 

 and the air being perfectly excluded, the fermen- 

 tation cannot run on to putrefaction. The dairy- 

 men say that the slow and slight degree of fermen- 

 tation which goes on, tends to the greater develop- 

 ment of the saccharine and nutritive principle, and 

 they will have as largo a stock upon hand as they 

 can afford, and not open the pits until they are com- 

 pelled. It is not uncommon for two years to .pass 

 before a pit r,f grains is touched ; and it is said that 



placed opposite to each other, 

 I different sheds ; all these cisterns are siip- 

 from one large tank. These cisterns have a 

 ;n cover, which is put on while the cows are 

 r their grains, to prevent their drinking at that 

 md tainting the water by dropping any of 

 ains into it. At the upper end .ind at one 

 ■ of this quadruple range of sheds is the 

 consisting of three rooms, each about twelve 

 square; the outer, or measuring room — the 

 3, or scalding room, with a fire-place and a 

 —and the inner, or milk and butter room, 

 the lower end of the range is a square yard 

 nded by sheds, some for fattening the cows 



.11 1 . ... "^1'.'.^ u pit III iiiaiija ia HJIUIIUU ; aiiu [IssaiUTiar 



s7r,tZT ,■'" ='" "^ ''"' ''"""'■ ^""^^ h-e lain nino years, and been pe fe t ly 

 .r,L"' ':,!!,""' ?'»" , .^'".P'"^ f'.'!'''' ff""d "t the expiration of that period. The dairy' 



lume the casual stock of skim milk which re 

 on hand, owing to the fluctuations of the de- 

 The milk is 1 ept in a well, walled with 

 aid in cement, about six feet in diameter, and 

 feet deep. The milk soon becomes sour 



but is then most nourishing to the hogs. 



ng swine is thought to be the mo.st profita- 

 d the suckling pigs are sold for roasting, 

 ond this yard is a deep pit or pond, into 

 the dung is emptied. There is a stackyard, 

 and pits for roots, straw, and hay ; a place 

 ting ciaff, cart-sheds, stables, and every 

 ,g which such an establishment can require, 

 imber of cows varies from four to five hun- 



man, however, must know his brewer, and be able 

 to depend on him. '1 he grains from a large ale 

 brewery are the most nourishing. Those from the 

 porter brewery are not so good ; and those from 

 the little brewers, who first draw off their ale and 

 afterwards extract every particle of nutriment in 

 the formation of table beer, are scarcely worth hav- 

 ing. 



Each cow is allowed a portion of salt. In Rhodes's 

 establishment it is given with the grains. Laycock 

 salts his rick when it is first made— a most excel- 

 lent plan, for the hay is not only effectually secur- 

 ed from becoming mow-burnt or mouldy, but it is 

 rendered more grateful to the animal, and we may 

 venture to say, almost doubly nourishing, from the 



tatoes, and mangel-wurtzel, are given as long as 

 they can be obtained at any reasonable price ; and 

 then the dairyman is driven to hay or chaff: the 

 superiority of chaff is now generally allowed. 



Both of these gentlemen fatten off their dry cows 

 "ith grains, oil-cake, and clover chaff, to which Mr 

 Laycock adds boiled linseed. Our readers may 

 recollect the experiments made by the Duke of 

 Bedford on the fattening quality of linseed, boiled 

 and unboiled, and in which the simple unboiled lin- 

 seed fattened the anii,,als more expeditiously than 

 any cooked preparation of that seed. Mr Laycock 

 boils the linseed in a common boiler, and when re- 

 duced to a pulp, conveys it by tubes into large 

 wooden cisterns, where it is mixed with clover 

 chaffroughly cut, and sometimes with grains. 



These wholesale dairymen usual ly^i^^ree with 

 the retail dealers, that they (the deat^fshall milk 

 the cows. The dealer knows the qiiilltity of milk 

 that he want.i, and the dairyman knowing the usual 

 quantity of milk yielded by each cow, calculates 

 what number of cows will meet the demand, and 

 the retail dealer attends at three o'clock in the mor- 

 ning and two in the afternoon, to milk those cows. 

 He carries it into the measuring room, whore its 

 precise quantity is ascertained. If, as cows often 

 vary considerably^ in their flow of milk in the course 

 of two or three days, he has milked more than his 

 quantity, it is put into a vessel belonging to the 

 dairyman; or if the cows should not have given 

 their usual supply, the d.ificiency is made up from 

 the dairyman's vessel. The milk which is left on 

 hand is put into shallow vessels, the cream skim- 

 med and made into butter, and the skimmed milk 

 thrown into the pit for the hogs. 



The joint-stock dairies, which a few years ago 

 sprung up in such abundance, have either ceased 

 to exist, or the number of cows much diminished, 

 have fallen into private hands. While there were 

 many partners, and the business was controlled by 

 a committee of persona who knew nothing at all 

 about the inaiter, they all proved to be lamentable 

 failures. Some of them, even in the hands of pri- 

 vate individuals, who brought with them little or 

 no experience, were sadly ruinous concerns. I he 

 Metropolitan dairy was a striking illustration of 

 this ; but now, under the management of those 

 who have been drilled into the business, it is doing 

 better. 



When a true genius appea.'-s in the world, you 

 may know him by this sign, that the dunces are all 

 in confederacy against him Swift. 



The happiness of every man depends more upon 

 the stale of his own mind than upon any one ex- 

 tern i! circumstance ; nay, more than upon all ex- 

 ternal things put together.— .<?!> /f. Jones. 



