J06 Report on the Agriculture of Sweden and Norway. 
and on account of the diflficultj of procuring good bulls, at- 
tempts at their maintenance as an improved pure breed have 
been practically abandoned. The best type is known as the 
Herrgdrdsracc, or noble's race, a name which formerly distin- 
ijuished it from the less-cultivated type that was bred by the 
peasants. The distinction is still maintained nominally, al- 
though it is now more a matter of feeding and general treatment 
than of pureness of blood, which it is almost vain to look for. 
Mr. Dannfelt has had one cow of the Herrgardsrace which 
gave as much as 920 gallons of milk per annum, and others 
yielding from 575 to 690 gallons have not been uncommon on 
the Royal estates. At the same time it should be mentioned 
that peasants' cows do not yield anything like this quantity, 
from 200 to 300 gallons being a high average. 
The ordinary system in Sweden, formerly more general than 
it is now, is that only the smaller farmers rear their cattle ; and 
that as their heifers begin to breed they sell the older cows to the 
larger farmers. The peasant looks upon the sale of his cows 
as the principal source of his income in coin of the realm ; 
therefore his object is to keep as many heifer-calves as possible. 
In the comparatively short summer there is generally plenty of 
food for them, but during the long winter they are half-starved. 
The people concerned have become so habituated to this mode 
of treatment, that they now, in very many instances, conscien- 
tiously believe it to be based on a rational system of cattle- 
breeding. They say, " if we fed the stock better during the 
winter they would run to meat like your Durhams." How far 
this treatment conduces to make them " run to milk " may be 
inferred from the fact that the annual yield of milk by peasants' 
cows is generally calculated at from 150 to 250 gallons, while 
not a few large herds of Shorthorn-crosses average 500 and 600 
gallons per head per annum. 
The prevailing system pays the large farmer well enough, 
because he buys cows, such as they are, at a time when they are 
beginning to yield the largest quantity of milk, namely, after 
having dropped two or three calves, at a price varying from 6/. 
or 11. to 12/. or 14/., according to circumstances, the highest prices 
being obtained in the neighbourhood of Stockholm and some 
other large towns for exceptionally good milkers. Universal 
testimony goes to show that the yield of milk may be enorm- 
ously increased, even in cows that have been badly fed as calves 
and heifers, by a judiciously liberal diet ; and it is scarcely 
conceivable that the cows could be reared by their purchasers 
at so small a cost as the price usually paid for them. 
It will be seen by Table Vlll. on page 195, that more than ()0 
per cent, of the cattle in Sweden, and more than 70 per cent, of 
