OF CORNWALL. 287 
breed them, the Cornifh have as large cattle as elfewhere, and 
with thefe the markets are well fupplied, particularly in the larger 
towns z . 
The calf is fold generally too foon to the butcher to make fine 
veal, an inconvenience owing to the multitude of inhabitants, and 
the quick demand there is for the milk and butter of the dam. 
To make butter, the cream is not fkimmed off raw, as it natu- 
rally rifes to the furface of the milk ; but after it has refted in the 
veffel about twelve hours a , the milk is fcalded in an earthen pan, 
over a flow gentle fire, till it is as hot as a perfon can well bear his 
finger in, by which means the cream, fettling into a wrinkled fur- 
rowed pellicle about a line thick, grows hard and clouted. This 
method of managing the milk is peculiar to Cornwall, and fome 
parts of Devonfhire ; but unlefs much caution and neatnefs be ufed 
in cleaning the veflels, and ordering the fire, is very apt to give a 
fmoaky, earthy tafte to the butter, foon perceived by and difagree- 
able to travellers : it muff be obferved alio that the hre does not 
increafe the quantity of butter ; for by experiment of the fame 
quantity of milk drawn at the fame time from the fame cows and 
pafture, the raw cream made ten ounces and three quarters of 
butter, the fcalded cream made only nine ounces and a quarter ; the 
raw cream therefore yielded above one feventh more of butter than 
the fcalded : this way of fcalding does however foften and melio- 
rate the remaining milk by evaporating, as I imagine, the acrimo- 
nious parts ; the hard cream alfo preferves the milk from fouring, 
of which the Cornifh common people are fo fenfible, that they will 
eat the fcald-milk readily, but the milk from which the cream has 
been fkimmed raw, they will fcarce tafte. 
The black-cattle fometimes generate very foon ; a calf before fhe 
was twelve months old having produced, in 1 7 5 2 > another calf at 
Caftlehornek, in the parifh of Maddern, and no material inconveniency 
enfued ; fhe proved a fizeable cow, and had ftore of milk, which 
is the more extraordinary, becaufe fuch premature conceptions 
ufually prevent the growth, impairing the alimentary as well as 
generative paflages. Dr. Plot gives us inftances of the like early 
fecundity both in Oxfordfhire and Staffbrdfhire. 
Cattle have not only their unufual and early, but fometimes their 
monftrous productions, of which the moft remarkable, which has 
reached my notice, was a calf caft in the tenement of Kalleftek 
in Piran-fand, in the month of May 1751, by a cow of Thomas 
Hodge : It had two heads, conjoined ; four ears, four eyes, four 
noftrils, two mouths, and two back-bones on the fore-part, which 
* Bodman, Helfton, Penzance, &c. fore they fcald it, in order to have the more 
> Some keep it two days (in the winter) be- cream. 
came 
