Bad Milking Habits 41 
Cows easily contract habits with respect to milk- 
ing, and often these habits are very disagreeable and 
amount to a good deal of loss. Many cows will not 
“give down” the milk unless they are fed at, or just 
before, the time of milking. Occasional cows will 
yield very much more milk for a favorite milker than 
for a stranger. For this reason it is a common 
practice, particularly in small herds, that each milker 
should milk the same cows each day. In large herds, 
however, where milkers necessarily have to be 
changed frequently, pains are taken to prevent the 
contraction of any such habits, and the cows are 
milked indiscriminately, and so have no chance to 
form an attachment for any particular milker. It is 
a common opinion among dairymen that milking 
habits are more easily formed during the first lacta- 
tion of thé heifer, and care is taken that the heifers 
be milked as well as possible, and that their lactation 
period be prolonged as closely as possible up to the 
time of dropping the second calf. There is no dis- 
advantage in such practice, even if it often fails to 
yield tangible results. Mechanical milking machines, 
that have been the subject of so much and so long 
continued experiment, have now reached practical 
form, and are being successfully introduced in many 
large dairies. 
The individual capacity of the cow.—No single fact 
in milk production is of more importance, so far as 
profit and loss is concerned, than that the cow is a 
law unto herself in respect to the amount of milk 
that she can be made to ‘give. Profitable dairying 
