178 
The Milk-yields of Tvjo Cheshire llerds. 
sionally mown, the last time having been in 1888. The land had received 
5 cwt. of bones to the acre twice within the last five years. The turf was 
dug seven inches deep, and there was no sign of rootlets on the lower face. 
The soil was a dirty yellowish-brown clay, becoming darker towards the 
top : it was free from stones. 
This was a very grassy turf ; cut on July 6. It yielded — 
Gramineous herbage . . . . . .97 per cent. 
Leguminous „ 1 „ 
Other herbage 2 „ 
The leguminous herbage was Trifolium pratense (purple or meadow 
clover). The “ other herbage ” was made up of Taraxacum (dandelion), 
Plantago (plantain or rib-grass), and Ranunculus bulbosus (buttercup). 
On separation the grassy herbage yielded the following percentages : — 
Lolium perenne (rye-grass) 75 per cent. 
Agrostis stolonifera (tiorin) 15 „ 
Holcus lanatus (Yorkshire fog) . . . . 3 „ 
Phleum pratense (timothy) ..... 2 „ 
Poa trivialis (rough-stalked meadow grass) . . 1 „ 
Cynosurus cristatus (dogstail) . . . . 1 „ 
Anthoxanthum odoratum (sweet vernal) . . a trace 
Undetermined 3 per cent. 
The Woodliouse pastures lie upon mixed soils, composed of sand- 
stone, clay, alluvial deposit, and gravel ; they often get flooded, and 
are always very wet in rainy weather, whilst the Grange pastures 
never get floods on them. There are also a number of working 
horses kept on the Woodhouse pastures during the summer, and 
occasionally some sheep, these being more or less detrimental to the 
dairy cows. 
We rear a large number of calves each year, from the females of 
which the herds are kept at their full complement. The principle 
followed is to keep the calves from the heaviest milkers, although 
there is no certainty that we shall get a first-class milker by so 
doing ; nor indeed can the bull always be depended upon. Never- 
theless, there is greater likelihood of getting a good milker from a 
good cow than from an inferior one. If farmers would exercise 
care in selecting and breeding from good milkers, and in eliminating 
the poor ones, the returns would be more satisfactory, for it costs 
as much to keep a bad cow as to maintain a good one. 
The year 1892 was not a very favourable one for milk. There 
was a cold, backward spring, very little summer, and October was 
a most wretched month, in which 7} inches of rain fell, and twenty- 
three of its days were wet. The milk during this period decreased 
much more than it should have done, and a great loss was thereby 
sustained. The in-calf heifers, coming into the herd this year, are 
small, their inferior growth being due to the cold wet season of 
1892. Both of the herds which form the subject of this communi- 
cation are under the management of Mr. W. H. Phillips, who keeps 
the milk-records with every care. 
Turning now to an examination of the tabulated yields of indi- 
vidual cows, it will commonly be noticed that a low yield coincides 
with the case of either a young cow or a short period of lactation ; 
