Report on the Farm-Prize Competition^ 1871. 335 
Mr. Walker has made on an average over 4 cwts. of 120 lbs. 
■of clicese per cow, even the last three bad years — his winter- 
made cheese fetching 81s., and the sur-nmer made more than 83s. 
per cwt. of 120 lbs. He has also gained the three first prizes 
of the Staffordshire Agricultural Society, and the Society's three 
silver medals for the best cheese in both classes, thick and thin. 
Last year he took the first prize of A. Bass, Esq., M.P., open to 
all Staffordshire and fifteen miles from the borders. He has 
taken two first prizes for cheese of the Derbyshire Agricultural 
Society, together with a number of local cheese prizes ; and as 
the system of cheese-making practised by Mr. Walker has not 
been described or known, except in that important dairy district, 
a special visit was made with a view to record some of his more 
peculiar features of dairy management. 
1st. Mr. Walker <rives his cowsthrou<rh the summer two feeds 
of grains per day, viz. 17 stones, at 4(/. per stone, and 8 stones of 
Indian meal, at Is. per stone, costing for fifty cows 13s. 8f?. per 
<lay. This will explain the large quantity of cheese made 
per cow per year, and the exceptional richness of the milk, 90 lbs. 
of which yielded 3 lbs. 4 ozs. of butter, as shown in Table 
No. 3, p. 341. It was remarkable, in the month of July, to see 
how eagerly the cows left their pastures and rushed to their stalls ; 
and Mr. Walker considers that the cheese and butter pay for 
the food, and leave him a profit in the increased fertility of 
his pastures. 
2nd. He, by rearing a large number of female calves, is 
enabled to draft off his worst milkers, and by putting them late 
to the bull they milk through the winter and part of the second 
summer, when they generally fetch high prices for winter 
milkers ; and thus he makes cheese through the winter. 
3rd. The cows are milked by the men, Mr. Walker and his 
farm pupil assisting ; and the importance of good milking may 
be illustrated by the case of Mr. Brown, of Preston, one of the 
competitors, who thus writes : — " I give high prices for my cows, 
I keep them on expensive food, and to hear and see them badly 
milked is a trouble I cannot bear. So well as my cows did the 
last year, considering the season, I am satisfied they would have 
done much more if my milkers had been up to their work. It is 
my determination to have only those that would go about their 
work in a way so as to give the cow an apparent pleasure in 
• giving her milk, rather than hold it back, as she will do to an 
indifferent milker. Again, I strictly enforce habits of cleanli- 
ness, a vessel of clean water and a towel being kept in or near 
the shippon, in order that each milker should keep his hands 
perfectly clean. It is the want of proper attention to these 
matters of detail that is the cause of so much ill-flavoured cheese 
