Town Milk. 
87 
m.angers throughout the building are divided may be supplied 
with water in succession. The cows stand two and two in seven- 
feet stalls with short wooden divisions. The lair next the manger 
is rammed earth, the latter half of its length is a brick floor. It 
IS 6 feet 3 inches long (from the manger to the gutter), and there 
is a drop of 4 inches into the gutter, which empties at intervals 
into the central drain. The gangway behind the cows and 
between the two gutters is 5i feet wide ; and in this central gang- 
way a wooden tramway is sunk flush with the brick-floor, on 
which a truck runs from one end of the shed to the other, and is 
used to collect the dung when the shed is being cleaned, and to 
carry it to the manure stance at the further end near the tank. 
The cows are secured by neck-chains and sliding rings to long 
upright iron staples in the posts, each on its own side of the 
double stall. The whole thing is compendious, not very expensive 
(costing about 4/. ])er cow), and economical of the labour per- 
formed in it ; and this is a very important consideration. 
Health of the Cow. 
The treatment of the cow has thus been discussed under the 
several heads of food and water, regular and gentle attendance, 
and accommodation, including reference to its lair and to the 
ventilation and warmth of the air it breathes. And on these 
particulars, if the cow be free from illness when she is bought, 
her health depends. But she may be purchased with the seeds 
of disease already implanted, and she may thus bring disease 
to others as well as suffer it herself. Generally the first symp- 
tom of any impending attack is a diminution in the milk. 
JNIr. Mosey, of the Albion Dairy, Barnsbury, tells me that he has 
long been in the habit of daily recording the milk of every cow, 
just for the sake of having this indication brought immediately 
imder his attention. And the cowman who is constantly in 
attendance on a dozen cows, of course at once detects a failing 
of this kind, whether he records it or not. The loss of milk 
sometimes appears even before a loss of appetite. In such a 
case, when the cattle plague has been about, the rule has always 
been immediately to send the cow to market: and even now, if 
the cow is half fat, it is the best policy whenever, if guided by 
these symptoms, the owner believes a serious attack of any kind 
to be impending, to sell the cow at once. For the avoidance of 
disease, and even it is believed for the cure of it, when only the 
germ exists, it is a good plan in the case of all newly bought 
cattle to give a drench of one ounce of nitre in a quart bottle of 
water, into which 4 ozs. of flour of sulphur have been v/cU shaken. 
I have known dealers of large experience thus drench all 
