lent food, and by
careful milking, to hold out even up to the time of calving, if you
desire to milk her so long, and this habit will be likely to be fixed
upon her for life. But do not expect to obtain the full yield of a cow
the first year after calving. Some of the very best cows are slow to
develop their best qualities; and no cow reaches her prime till the age
of five or six years.

The extreme importance of care and attention to these points cannot be
overestimated. The wild cows grazing on the plains of South America, are
said to give not more than three or four quarts a day at the height of
the flow; and many an owner of large herds in Texas, it is said, has too
little milk for family use, and sometimes receives his supply of butter
from the New York market. There is, therefore, a constant tendency in
milch cows to dry up; and it must be guarded against with special care,
till the habit of yielding a large quantity, and yielding it long,
becomes fixed in the young animal, when, with proper care, it may easily
be kept up.

Cows, independently of their power to retain their milk in the udder,
afford different degrees of pleasure in milking them, even in the
quietest mood. Some yield their milk in a copious flow, with the
gentlest handling that can be given them; others require great exertion
to draw the milk from them even in streams no larger than a thread. The
udder of the former will be found to have a soft skin and short teats;
that of the latter will have a thick skin, with long rough teats. The
one feels like velvet; the other is no more pleasant to the touch than
untanned leather. To induce quiet and persuade the animal to give down
her milk freely, it is better that she should be fed at milking-time
with cut feed, or roots, placed within her easy reach.

If gentle and mild treatment is observed and persevered in, the
operation of milking, as a general thing, appears to be a pleasure to
the animal, as it undoubtedly is; but, if an opposite course is
pursued--if at every restless movement, caused, perhaps, by pressing a
sore teat, the animal is harshly spoken to--she will be likely to learn
to kick as a habit, and it will be difficult to overcome it ever
afterward.

Whatever may be the practice on other occasions, there can be no doubt
that, for some weeks after calving, and in the height of the flow, cows
ought, if possible, to be milked regularly three times a day--at early
morning, noon, and night. E