5 76 
C0W-SPA11NG. 
questionably the safest method to avert such losses. A 
spayed cow yields milk about twice as long, hence twice as 
much, as that given by a cow under ordinary circumstances. 
She fattens readily, laying on flesh from the time she is 
spayed, and very rapidly after she has ceased to give milk. 
The condition of a cow contrasts most favorably with that of 
other cows in a town byre, and the flesh is, of course, tender 
and rich. There is no loss as by pregnant cows, and spaying 
is the only and safe means of cure for sestromania.” Has 
Mr. Gamgee not taken a somewhat narrow and superficial 
view of the causes of the loss sustained in town dairies, when 
he affirms that spaying is the remedy to avert the evil? 
Like the speculations of all theorists, his opinion is one-sided, 
and what it wants in proof is made up by mere affirmation. 
He never for a moment considers the great and sudden 
changes which town-dairy cows are unavoidably subjected to 
on the all-important points of air, exercise, and diet. All at 
once deprived of the two former, and at the same time of 
their usual and natural articles of food, by the substitution of a 
new form of dietary nourishment, which is highly exciting and 
artificial, can it be matter of wonder that animals so fed, 
without the natural accessaries to aid the process of digestion, 
should be liable to all the diseases of high and over-feeding, 
consequent upon the congestion of blood in the various im¬ 
portant vital organs ? These are necessary evils inherent in 
the system, which entails an almost annual change of cows 
upon their proprietors. Let Mr. Gamgee say if he thinks 
that spaying will prevent such consequences. 
Two important facts are established with reference to the 
system of town-dairy management. The first is, that it calls 
for nearly an annual renewal of dairy stock, as the animals at 
the expiration of that period are most profitably disposed of 
to fleshers for slaughtering, being not fit for any other pur¬ 
pose; and the second is, that the produce—milk and butter 
—of such as are stall-fed, in a great measure on grass from 
meadows irrigated by the drainage of large towns, is dete¬ 
riorated in quality, both the milk and butter more rapidly 
undergoing decomposition than what is obtained from country- 
fed-cows. 
The difference between the quality and price of milk and 
butter obtained from cows fed in country and town dairies 
has been long well known, and the omission of any reference 
to so striking a deterioration of produce would be remarkable 
in any treatise on dairy stock, but is especially and altogether 
inexplicable on the part of Mr. Gamgee, seeing he has 
annexed to the advertisement of his own publication the 
