ntent myself, therefore, with what has already been said on this
subject; and shall only make an observation on the _act of milking_,
before I come to the chief matter; namely, the _getting of the food for
the cow_. A cow should be milked _clean_. Not a drop, if it can be
avoided, should be left in the udder. It has been proved that the half
pint that comes out _last_ has _twelve times_, I think it is, as much
butter in it, as the half pint that comes out _first_. I tried the milk of
ten Alderney cows, and, as nearly as I, without being very nice about the
matter, could ascertain, I found the difference to be about what I have
stated. The udder would seem to be a sort of milk-pan in which the cream
is uppermost, and, of course, comes out last, seeing that the outlet is at
the bottom. But, besides this, if you do not milk clean, the cow will give
less and less milk, and will become dry much sooner than she ought. The
_cause_ of this I do not know, but experience has long established the
fact.

115. In providing food for a cow we must look, first, at the _sort of
cow_; seeing that a cow of one sort will certainly require more than twice
as much food as a cow of another sort. For a cottage, a cow of the
smallest sort common in England is, on every account, the best; and such a
cow will not require above 70 or 80 pounds of good moist food in the
twenty-four hours.

116. Now, how to raise this food on 40 rods of ground is what we want to
know. It frequently happens that a labourer has _more_ than 40 rods of
ground. It more frequently happens, that he has some _common_, some
_lane_, some little out-let or other, for a part of the year, at least. In
such cases he may make a different disposition of his ground; or may do
with less than the 40 rods. I am here, for simplicity's sake, to suppose,
that he have 40 rods of clear, unshaded land, besides what his house and
sheds stand upon; and that he have nothing further in the way of means to
keep his cow.

117. I suppose the 40 rods to be _clean_ and _unshaded_; for I am to
suppose, that when a man thinks of 5 quarts _of milk a day_, on an
average, all the year round, he will not suffer his ground to be
encumbered by apple-trees that give him only the means of treating his
children to fits of the belly-ache, or with currant and gooseberry bushes,
which, though their fruit do very well to _amuse_, really give nothing
worthy of the name of _food_, except to the blackbirds and thrus