220 
Agriculture in Derbyshire. 
Mayor and Corporation, under whose control the markets are, 
spare no expense from time to time in carrying out improve- 
ments for the benefit of both buyer and seller. 
This ancient but progressive town, in addition to various 
large works and manufactures, reaps considerable benefit by 
having the Midland Railway’s central works situated in the 
borough, where many thousand men are employed. In this 
connection I may mention that the Company are most liberally 
granting the site for the coming Show free of cost and are 
rendering all the assistance possible. 
Derbyshire, if not entirely the home of the dairy cow, has 
from time to time made advances in the breeding of the 
Shorthorn, especially as regards milking properties. In former 
days the county took a lead in cheese making, whereas in late 
years more attention has been paid to the production of milk. 
It is imagined by some people that the present human 
generation lives at a much faster pace than previous generations, 
and it may not be out of place to ask whether our cattle are 
not doing the same. In the first place, the large-framed, old 
stamp of dairy cow is not met with now in the numbers it used 
to be ; beasts of from twelve to fourteen years old, apparently 
as good as ever except for age, are not nearly so numerous, the 
animal of to-day appearing quite as old at eight or ten years of 
age. Screws are more plentiful, and tuberculosis is more 
prevalent. The living of the cow is quite altered ; to increase 
the supply of milk the food given has to be of the most forcing 
kind, and consequently, to respond to this call upon her, nearly 
the whole of the food supplied has to be of a minced character, 
leading one to the impression that she has not time to chew 
the cud. Formerly choppers and pulpers were unknown 
machines in connection with the cowshed. 
Other questions might be asked as to whether this new 
mode of living, with its artificial feeding, tends to improve or to 
deteriorate the animal ? Have these machines taken the place 
of the extra stomach with which nature has supplied the 
cow ? and have the grains which are so largely used (especially 
when given new and fresh from the brewery) any tendency to 
render the animal more susceptible to disease ? 
How the citizen and townsman came by his milk formerly, 
if he had any, I am at a loss to know, unless each one consumes 
more than a double quantity now. In the Midland Counties 
there are plenty of rural parishes where in days gone by one 
would find from six to a dozen or more dairy farms on which 
all the milk was made into cheese and butter, turning out 
■from a ton to probably four or more tons in a season, whilst 
at the present time not a single cheese is made on these farms 
for the market. All the milk goes direct from the cow to the 
