rs each day than when confined altogether to the
cow-house.

At a somewhat uncertain period before she calves, there will be a new
secretion of milk for the expected little one; and under the notion of
somewhat recruiting her strength, in order better to enable her to
discharge her new duty--but more from the uniform testimony of
experience that there is danger of local inflammation, general fever,
garget in the udder, and puerperal fever, if the new milk descends while
the old milk continues to flow--it has been usual to let the cow _go
dry_ for some period before parturition. Farmers and breeders have been
strangely divided as to the length of this period. It must be decided by
circumstances. A cow in good condition may be milked for a much longer
period than a poor one. Her abundance of food renders a period of
respite almost unnecessary; and all that needs to be taken care of, is
that the old milk should be fairly gone before the new milk springs. In
such a cow, while there is danger of inflammation from the sudden rush
of new milk into a bag already occupied, there is almost always
considerable danger of indurations and tumors in the teats from the
habit of secretion being too long suspended. The emaciated and
over-milked beast, however, must rest a while before she can again
advantageously discharge the duties of a mother.

If the period of pregnancy were of equal length at all times and in all
cows, the one that has been well fed might be milked until within a
fortnight or three weeks of parturition, while a holiday of two months
should be granted to the poorer beast; but as there is much
irregularity about the time of gestation, it may be prudent to take a
month or five Weeks, as the average period.

The process of parturition is necessarily one that is accompanied with a
great deal of febrile excitement; and, therefore, when it nearly
approaches, not only should a little care be taken to lessen the
quantity of food, and to remove that which is of a stimulating action,
but a mild dose of physic, and a bleeding regulated by the condition of
the animal, will be very proper precautionary measures.

A moderately open state of the bowels is necessary at the period of
parturition in the cow. During the whole time of pregnancy her enormous
stomach sufficiently presses upon and confines the womb; and that
pressure may be productive of injurious and fatal consequences, if at
this period the rumen is suffered to be di