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To Manage a Dairy (Directions to the Cow-Feeder)

Directions to the Cow-Feeder.

Go to the cow-stall at six o'clock in the morning, winter and summer; give each cow half a bushel of the mangel-wurtzel, carrots, turnips, or potatoes, cut; at seven o'clock, the hour the dairy-maid comes to milk them, give each some hay, and let them feed till they are all milked. If any cow refuses hay, give her something she will eat, such as grains, carrots, etc., during the time she is milking, as it is absolutely necessary the cow should feed whilst milking. As soon as the woman has finished milking in the morning, turn the cows into the airing ground, and let there be plenty of fresh waier in the troughs; at nine o'clock give each cow three gallons of this mixture: to eight gallons of grain add four gallons of bran or pollard; when they have eaten that put some hay into the cribs; at twelve o'clock give each three gallons of the mixture as before; if any cow looks for more give her another gallon; on the contrary, if she will not eat what you gave her, take it out of the manger, for never at one time let a cow have more than she will eat up clean. Mind and keep the mangers clean, that they do not get sour. At two o'clock give each cow half a bushel of carrots, or turnips; look the turnips, etc., over well before giving them to the cows, as one rotten turnip will give a bad taste to the milk, and most likely spoil a whole dairy of butter. At four o'clock put the cows into the stall to be milked; feed them on hay as at milking-time in the morning, keeping in mind that the cow whilst milking must feed on something. At six o'clock give each cow three gallons of the mixture as before. Rack them up at eight o'clock. Twice in a week put into each cow's feed at noon a quart of malt-dust. Corn or mill-feed (offal from grinding flour from wheat) is still better. One-half peck of corn, or a little more, mill-feed twice a day, mixed with chopped straw or hay, wet and mashed.

Directions to the Dairy-Maid.

Go to the cow-stall at 7 o'clock; take with you cold water and a sponge, and wash each cow's udder clean before milking; dowse the udder well with cold water, winter and summer, as it braces and repels heats. Keep your hands and arms clean. Milk each cow as dry as you can, morning and evening, and when you milk each cow as you suppose dry, begin again with the cow you first milked and drip them each, for the principal reason of cows failing in their milk is from negligence in not milking the cow dry, particularly at the time the calf is taken from the cow. Suffer no one to milk the cow but yourself, and have no gossiping in the stall. Every Saturday night give in an exact account of the quantity each cow has given in the week.

To make Oats prove Doubly Nutritious to Horses.

Instead of grinding the oats, break them in a tritious. Another method is to boil the corn and mill, and the same quantity will prove doubly nugive the horses the liquor in which it has been boiled; the result will be, that instead of six bushels in a crude state, three bushels so prepared will be found to answer, and to keep the animals in superior vigor and condition.

Cheap Method of Rearing Horned Cattle.

After having expressed the oil from the linseed, make up the remaining husks or dross into round balls of the size of a fist, and afterwards dry them; infuse and dissolve two or three of these balls in hot water, and add in the beginning a third or fourth part of fresh milk, but afterwards, when the calves are grown, mix only skim milk with the infusion.

To rear Calves.

The best method of rearing calves is to take them from the cows in three weeks or a month, and to give them nothing but a little fine hay until they begin through necessity to pick a little; then | dling size, great milkers, and well adapted to the cut some of the hay and mix it with bran or oats in a trough, and slice some turnips about the size of a dollar, which they will soon by licking learn to eat; after which give them turnips enough.

To rear Calves without Milk.

In two or three days after they are calved take the calves from the cows, put them in a house by themselves, then give them a kind of water gruel, composed of about one-third barley and twothirds of oats ground together very fine, then sift the mixture through a very fine sieve, put it into the quantity of water below mentioned, and boil it half an hour, when take it off the fire, and let it remain till it is milk-warm; then give each calf about a quart in the morning, and the same quantity in the evening, and increase it as the calf grows older. It requires very little trouble to make them drink it; after the calves have had this diet about a week or ten days, tie up a little bundle of hay and put it in the middle of the house, which they will by degrees come to eat; also put a little of the meal above-mentioned in a small trough for them to eat occasionally; keep them in this manner until they are of proper age to turn out to grass, before which they must be at least two months old.

Another Method.

Make an infusion of malt, or fresh wort as a substitute for milk; in summer it may be given to the calves cold, but in winter it must have the same degree of warmth as the milk just coming from the cow; the quantity is the same as the milk commonly given at once to a calf, and to be increased in proportion as the calf grows. To Fatten Poultry.

An experiment has been tried of feeding geese with turnips cut in small pieces like dice, but less in size, and put into a trough of water; with this food alone the effect was that six geese, each when lean weighing only nine pounds, actually gained twenty pounds each in about three weeks' fattening.

Malt is an excellent food for geese and turkeys; grains are preferred for the sake of economy, unless for immediate and rapid fattening; the grains should be boiled afresh.

Other cheap articles for fattening are oatmeal and treacle; barley-meal and milk; boiled oats and ground malt.

Corn before being given to fowls should always be crushed and soaked in water. The food will thus go further, and it will help digestion. Hens fed thus have been known to lay during the whole of the winter months.

Turkeys are very tender while young, afterwards quite hardy. Put them in large and open coops; they may be well raised with hens, and ramble less so. When hatched some put a grain of black pepper down their throats as a sort of cordial. The best food for ducks when hatched is bread and milk; in a few days barley-meal, wetted into balls as big as peas.

To choose a Milch Cow.

As to a choice of breeds for a private family, none (says Mr. Lawrence) probably combine so many advantages as the Suffolk dun cows.

They excel both in quantity and quality of milk; they feed well after they become barren; they are small-sized, and polled or hornless; the last a great convenience. The horns of cows which butt and gore others, should be immediately broad tipped. There is a breed of polled Yorkshire or Holderness cows, some of them of miduse of families where a great quantity of milk is required, and where price is no object and food in plenty. If richer milk and a comparison of the two famous breeds be desired, one of each may be selected, namely, the last mentioned and the other of the midland county, or long-horned species. Color is so far no object, that neither a good cow nor a good horse can either be of a bad color; nevertheless, in an ornamental view, the sheeted and pied stock of the Yorkshire short-horns make a picturesque figure in the grounds.

The Alderney cows yield rich milk upon less feed than larger stock, but are seldom large milkers, and are particularly scanty of produce in the winter season. They are, besides, worth little or nothing as barreners, not only on account of their small size, but their inaptitude to take on fat, and the ordinary quality of their beef.

To determine the Economy of a Cow.

The annual consumption of food per cow, if turned to grass, is from one acre to an acre and a half in summer, and from a ton to a ton and a half of hay in the winter. A cow may be allowed two pecks of carrots per day. The grass being cut and carried will economize it full one-third.

The annual product of a good, fair dairy cow during several months after calving, and either in summer or winter, if duly fed and kept in the latter season, will be an average of seven pounds of butter per week, from five to three gallons of milk per day. Afterwards a weekly average of three or four pounds of butter from barely half the quantity of milk. It depends on the constitution of the cow, how nearly she may be milked to the time of her calving, some giving good milk until within a week or two of that period, others requiring to be dried eight or nine weeks previously. I have heard (says Mr. Lawrence) of twenty pounds of butter, and even twenty-two pounds, made from the milk of one long-horned cow in seven days, but I have never been fortunate enough to obtain one that would produce more than twelve pounds per week, although I have had a Yorkshire cow which milked seven gallons per day, yet never made five pounds of butter in one week. On the average, three gallons of good milk will make one pound of butter.

To fatten Hogs.

The Shakers have proved that ground corn is one-third better than unground, and nineteen pounds of cooked meal are equal to fifty pounds raw. Boiled and slightly fermented vegetables are also very fattening to swine.

To breed Pheasants.

Eggs being provided, put them under a hen that has kept the nest three or four days, and if you set two or three hens on the same day you will have the advantage of shifting the good eggs.

The hens having set their full time, such of the young pheasants as are already hatched put in a basket, with a piece of flannel, till the hen has done hatching. The brood now coms put under a frame with a net over it, and a place for the hen, that she cannot get to the young pheasants, but that they may go to her, and feed them with boiled egg cut small, boiled milk and bread, alum curd, a little of each sort, and often. After two or three days they will be acquainted with the call of the hen that hatched them, may have their liberty to run on the grass-plat, or elsewhere, observing to shift them with the sun and out of the cold winds; they need not have their liberty in the morning till the sun is up, and they must be shut up with the hen in good time in the