88 
Town Milk. 
their cnttle immediately after leaving the fair whore they have 
l)(!en bought ; and there are stoc k-owners who invariably give this 
drench at spring and fall of the year, when a change of food is 
general ; and in both cases it is said that great advantage is derived 
in the consequent freedom from diseases such as foot-and-mouth 
disease, which are picked up in markets, or happen at the change 
of the season. And the practice may therefore be recommended 
to any one who is buying country cows for a London coAvhousc, 
Of course when your stock is attacked by any malignant disease 
like cattle plague, there is no help for you in any such expe- 
dient as this. 1 have gone through an experience of this kind, 
127 cattle out of a herd of 238 having been slaughtered on the 
Barking farm in August last year, owing to an attack of cattle 
plague. Here the only safeguard for any neighbt)uring cows is 
entire seclusion. Refusal of admission to strangers when any 
infectious disease is near is the only hope of avoiding it. Daily 
sprinkling with chloride of lime along the gangways after they 
have been cleansed ; hot lime thickly spread in all entrance ways 
through which those going to and fro must tread, and above all, 
.a strict quarantine — must be insisted on. Two of the cowhouses 
on the Barkin"- farm containing- 111 cows were thus saved 
wliile the cattle plague was raging in the homestead and in 
other sheds along tlie thoroughfare only 300 yards away ; and 
I have no doubt that the safety of these was owing to the entire 
isolation in which for a month they were kept. The attendants 
on these cows, whether men or horses, were refused access to any 
other part of the farm for that time, and the cowmen were strict 
prisoners for a month. 
Before referring to the produce of the cowhouse, and to the 
quality and quantity of the milk obtained in it, it is proper very 
shortly to insist on the essential need of cleanliness. This though 
especially required in the dairy is desirable everywhere. The cow, 
like all other animals, is the happier and more healthy for it. 
The dairy vessels must of course be clean, the pails must be 
scoured and rinsed after every milking. The milk is poured from 
them through a strainer at once into the can or " churn," which 
stands ready to receive it at the cow-house door; and in a suburban 
farm it is at once lifted into the spring-van which takes it directly 
up to town. Or in the case of a farm farther afield, the churn is 
placed to stand in water and its contents arc cooled down before 
being sent away. These "churns " must be scalded and rinsed after 
being emptied at the dealer's ; and when returned to the farm 
they must be again scoured, and scalded, and rinsed, before 
l)eing used. There is a boiler in the washing-house on the 
Lodge Farm, Barking, with a steam-pipe from it lying along 
