1862. 



THE ILLINOIS FAEMEE. 



233 



appetizer? The "pure coffee" noted above, is 

 probably invited for the long days of Bummer, 

 and so cheap that the poorest can have coffee to 

 drink. 



Milking Cows Once, Twice and Thrice 

 a Day. 



We copy from that valuable paper, the Ameri- 

 can Stock Journal, a most exhaustive chapter on 

 the above subject, to which we invite the careful 

 attention of our readers. Ed. 



For many years it seems to have been taken 

 for granted as settled, that the number of times 

 a cow should be milked in twenty-four hours, 

 should be according to the time occupied in fill'« 

 ing her bag, or the number of times the udder 

 requires emptying, because, as with any other 

 vessel or receptacle of fluild, the filling process 

 must be suspended unless room or space be pro- 

 vided as a necessary condition for the filling of 

 the bag to proceed, without perceptible intermis- 

 sion. 



Recently, however, there has been a lengthy 

 discussion, pro and con, as to the propriety of 

 milking only once a day ; the cons far outnum- 

 bering the advocates of innovation on the gener- 

 al custom in this respect ; but the disputants, so 

 far as I have been enabled to perceive, on one 

 side as well as the other, are completely over- 

 riding the merits of the question with an unan- 

 imity as complete as ludicrous. For instance the 

 critic "Quercus," of the Country Gentleman, 

 says, "he never could see that milking once a 

 day could be of any advantage, because it always 

 tends to lessen the flow of milk, or dry up the 

 cows." I quote from memory, and give the sub- 

 stance merely. But this reviewer is not so well 

 posted on this subject as on matters of horticul- 

 ture, I infer. For milking once a day only, does 

 not always lessen the "flow" of milk nor interfere 

 with the secretion either, and in certain condi 

 tions, which occur annually in the experience of 

 almost every person who keeps cows to milk, the 

 tendency to "drp up" is not increased by milking 

 merely once instead of twice daily. As, how- 

 ever, I have said that, in a recent long discussion 

 upon it, the merits of the questson were passed 

 over, I may here refer to several points necessary 

 to be included, to a full view of the subject. It 

 is not natural for cows to have large bags, or to 

 carry all the milk they have in twelve hours, less 

 or more, in their udders at one time. In a state 

 of nature, the calf always keeps the bag well 

 drained, by supplying itself thereform eight to 

 twelve times during the day. Hence the udder 

 would naturally never become large by tension, 

 either from fullness or otherwise, e:Kcept by dis- 

 ease. Yet the cow might, and on as much good 

 feed probaby does, in some instanses make as 

 much milk without any show of bag, as she could 

 with. The udder, being a muscular sack, is ca- 

 capable of being much increased in its s ze by 

 mechanical force, and the whole practice of milk- 

 ing cows periodically, as is the general custom, 

 is based upon this fact, or faculty in the natural 



capacity of the cow kind, whatever the result to 

 civilization. 



Naturally the udder has constant and complete 

 contractile force, like the muscles of the hand, 

 the leg, the eye, the bladder or any others. But 

 as the natural practice of secrecting milk is di- 

 verted from its original purpose, to gratify the 

 taste, or promote the convenience of man, the 

 udder is enlarged by excessive or unusual filling 

 and straining, till it attains a large size; and, in- 

 stead of contracting as it dees when often emptied 

 by the calf, it loses, gradually but surely, its orig- 

 inal contractile power. The bag being filled as 

 it soon is at the heighth of the grass season in 

 June, remains full for some time ; long enough, 

 certainly, to destroy, in most instances, the 

 power of the muscles to contract, and thus re- 

 duce the interior space, as well as the exterior 

 size of the sack or vessel. Consequently, when 

 a cow in her prime as a milker has been milked 

 afresh, there is ample space in her bag for milk 

 toflowinffi; and until this space is filled the 

 flow of milk is neither arrested nor improved. 

 The udder itself has no influence on the making 

 of milk, whether more or less, except it be so full 

 as to choke up the milk veins by repelling or not 

 receiving their contents as it flows forward and 

 downward to the natural recepacle provided for 

 the young to receive it from, that is, the udder. 



In most of the markets of England, in Hol- 

 land, and elsewhere, the cruel practice of "stank- 

 ing" used to prevail — for centuries probably — 

 until the more benevolent opinions of recent 

 times brought it under the interdiction of the 

 law against "cruelty to animals ;" and, in my 

 opinion, very properly so. For, though this prac- 

 tice of passing a milking by, or not milking at 

 the usual time, in order to have the udder 

 strained or swollen to an unusual size, gave the 

 semblance or show of a large milking capacity, 

 the capacity itself, or the function of secreting 

 milk must have been seriously interfered with, 

 and somewhat curtailed by the process, and every 

 repetition of it, just as, in every part of this 

 country, cows have their milkmaking capacity 

 impaired and reduced by their accidentally "ly- 

 ing out" in the woods, in the road, or whereso- 

 ever they may happen to wander. 



If, however, milking only once in two days, 

 whether accidentally or by design, reduces the 

 quantity of milk, while weakening the muscles 

 of the udder, both of which must inevitably hap- 

 pen, does it follow that milking twice a day is 

 absolutely as necessary in December as in June ; 

 with limited dry feed as with abundant suocnlent 

 herbage ; in the "dead of winter," the season of 

 comparative stagnation, as in the height of the 

 dairying season with a full bite of grass at mid- 

 summer ? If circumstances alter cases, surely 

 there is here a suflScient variation and difference 

 in circumstances, and in those affecting the qual- 

 ity and quantity — the latter the most of course 

 — of a milk cow will give in December as com- 

 pared with bar yield in June, or warrant and 

 even justify something like a correspondig 

 change in the emptying of the sack-like recep- 

 tacle provided for its temporary conveyance ! — 

 When there are swollen streams and a rush and 

 increase of water, the miller raises his flood-gate 



