42 
THE OX. 
THE DAIRY. 
In the case of the smaller and inferior class of Cows, the produce may be from 200 to 400 gallons in the year ; in the case of the 
superior class, from 500 to 1000 gallons. The quantity, too, varies much with the abundance and quality of the food supplied, 
so that, cceteris paribus , a Cow will yield milk nearly in proportion to the nutriment she is enabled to assimilate. The high value 
of the products of the dairy, and the prodigious diversity in the faculty of individual Cows to yield milk, show the great import¬ 
ance of extending a knowledge of the best modes of performing the manufacture, of cultivating a suitable race of Cows, and of 
feeding them in the best manner which the means at the command of the dairyman will allow. 
The Dairy is a branch of rural industry deserving of attention in the highest degree. There are no other means known to 
us by which so great a quantity of animal food can be derived for human support from the same space of ground. In the British 
Islands the production of this kind of aliment is immense, and its entire value forms no inconsiderable proportion of the yearly 
created produce of the land. There is no class of persons by whom milk in one or more of its forms is not used. Cheese may 
seem to be a mere superfluity to those who feed largely on other animal food ; yet, even amongst this class, the consumption, from 
its regularity, is considerable; but amongst the far more numerous classes to whom cheese is a part of their customary diet, the 
consumption of this substance is very great. Butter is used by almost every family above the poorest, and to an enormous extent 
as a substitute for oil in culinary preparations. Simple milk, too, enters into the diet of every class, with this peculiarity, that it 
is consumed in larger quantity in the rural districts than in the towns. It may be difficult to make an appioximate calculation of 
the quantity and value of milk consumed by the twenty-five millions of inhabitants of the British Islands. It is perhaps a rea¬ 
sonable calculation, that each individual consumes half a pint of milk in a day in its different forms, which would produce 
570,312,500 gallons, and at 8d. the gallon, L.19,010,416, besides more than 200 millions of gallons employed in the rearing and 
fattening of Calves. Great as this production is, it is not sufficient for the supply of the inhabitants ; and an impoitation takes 
place both of butter and cheese, which an extension of the native Dairy would enable the country to dispense with. 
