Farming of Cumberland. 



255 



" Kate," from Mr. Binns, of Lancaster, in 1819. These were of 

 first-rate breeding, and high feeding qualities ; and of their 

 milking and butter-producing properties Mr. Ferguson has thus 

 written : — " With regard to Kate, as to milk and butter, the 

 quantity of each was so extraordinary that I should say it was 

 quite incredible, had I not myself been an eye-witness of it. It 

 was tested in two ways, wherein there could be no doubt. For 

 many weeks she gave 13 quarts at one meal, each quart producing 

 2 ounces of butter ; the quantity being so large, I had the milk 

 kept by itself, and at seven days' end we churned t\ve:nty-six 

 POUNDS OF BUTTER." Mr. Ferguson adds, that this cow, during 

 the time, got nothing but grass from an ordinary pasture. The 

 offspring of this remarkable family of cattle are yet among the 

 herds of Mr. Fawcett, of Scaleby Castle, and others, both in this 

 county and Westmoreland, and are still found to retain their 

 valuable properties to a great degree, though of necessity crossed 

 with other blood. The short-horn cow " Dairy," belonging to 

 the late Mr. Calvert, of Sandysike, near Brampton, is another 

 instance of extraordinary yield of milk and butter from an animal 

 of capital feeding qualities, and of good points and breeding. 

 This cow gave, on a pasture of middling quality, 28 quarts of 

 milk per day, from her time of calving in spring till midsummer, 

 and averaged 20 quarts per day for 20 weeks. In 32 weeks she 

 produced 373 lbs. of butter, averaging 11 1 lbs. per week. The 

 greatest weekly quantity given during that time was 17 lbs., and 

 the least 7 lbs.* 



Mr. Jackson, of Barngill House, w^hen at Moresby Mill, was 

 supplied by the writer with a cow (the only one kept at the mill) 

 which, on grass and bran, regularly gave from 14 to 16 lbs. of 

 butter weekly during several seasons, besides 2 quarts of new 

 milk a day, used by the family. This cow was of the ordinary 

 short-horn breed, and fed rapidly when not giving milk. 



There can be no doubt of raising a breed uniting these very 

 desirable qualities, if due jmins icere taken in some large stock 

 which could send out a number of young bulls annually ; the ele- 

 ments of success are not scarce ; they only want concentrating 

 by some man of resolution strong enough to reject a fine or 

 favourite animal if defective in her milking qualities. The dairy 

 books kept by some gentlemen farmers show the milking quali- 

 ties of their herds with great accuracy ; and the lactometers or 

 graduated glass tubes give the relative quantities of cream pro- 

 duced as often as the trials may be instituted. These are safe 



* The produce was carefully kept separate and registered by the owner, whose 

 Journal of it the writer has perused. The writer also purchased two of Dairy's 

 descendants, which both possessed the remarkable qualities of their parent, but in 

 a less degree as to butter. 



