DOMESTIC ANIMALS. 
154 
only. It being his only cow, furnished his family with their cream and 
milk besides.” The second is from the Farmer and Mechanic, which 
says : “ The best cow now in the United States is probably owned near 
Geneva, N. Y., which through the month of June, 1849, gave forty-two 
quarts of milk per day ; and for five days she gave forty-five quarts per 
day. The cow is half Durham and half of the native breed.” 
The Somerset Messenger, New Jersey, contains a communication 
from J. W. Van Arsdale, stating the profits of a half-blooded Durham 
cow owned by him, for ten months from the 1st of April, 1849, to the 
1st of February following. He sold in that time to the retailer 3,022 
quarts, at 2 and 2J cents a quart, amounting to §70.51, besides reserv- 
ing a sufficient quantity for the use of his family of eleven persons, and 
about two messes of milk twice a week for baking purposes. The 3,022 
quarts were sold by the retailer at double the price he gave for it, that 
is, for §141.02. He calculates that this amount of milk would have made 
302 pounds of butter, which, at 20 cents a pound, amounts to $60.40. 
The cow has not had extraordinary care — having had two quarts of oat 
and corn meal per day during the drought last summer, and three quarts 
last spring before grass and this winter. And a farmer in Essex county, 
in that state, realized during twelve months previous to February 1st, 
1850, a net profit of $456.09 from three ordinary cows — animals of the 
common breed of the country — that in most other hands would not 
probably much more than have paid for their keeping. As it is, they 
have supplied the family with all their milk and cream, paid for their 
keeping in full, as appears by a minute daily account, and yielded the 
above-named profit of $456.09. 
It is unnecessary to gather up more similar cases. Our agricultural 
journals are filled with them. Now, suppose a farmer resolve that he 
would keep no cow that did not hold out a good milker nine months in 
the year, and that did not give sixteen quarts of milk per day for two 
months after calving, twelve quarts per day for the next four months, six 
quarts per day for the next three months, and two quarts per day for the 
following month ; such a cow would yield per annum 3,000 quarts of 
milk, which, at four cents a quart, would be $120. Considering the cases 
above given, is not this feasible? With such cows, what if it does cost 
five or ten dollars a year more to keep them than is ordinarily expended 
for the purpose? May not such cows be raised? No matter if they 
do cost fifty or sixty dollars each ; they soon pay for themselves. 
If the various modes of obtaining this object were resorted to at once 
throughout the country, there would be a vast improvement in a very 
short time. No young animal of promising appearance for milk would 
go to the butcher. More care would be taken of young stock. More 
young stock would be retained to insure a better selection for milk cows. 
Farmers would think more of the advantages of employing the im- 
proved breed. Heifers would be milked with great care and very thor- 
oughly, to get them in the habit of holding out longer as milkers. If 
they once dry early, no care and keeping will afterward correct the 
fault. Heifers with the first calf, especially, should be well fed, and with 
some additional care, the last throe months they are in milk, to make 
them hold out. 
