Before commencing to milk, a cow should be fed, or have some kind of fodder offered her, in view of diverting her attention from the operation of milking. By this means the milk is not held up, as the saying is, but is yielded freely. All these precautions are more indispensable when the cow has just been deprived of her calf. She is then uneasy, fretful, and irritable, and generally so disconsolate as to need the kindest treatment and the utmost soothing. The milker should be in close contact with the cow’s body, for in this position, if she attempt to kick him, he gets nothing more than a push, whereas if he sits off at a distance, the cow has an opportunity to inflict a severe blow whenever she feels disposed to do so.
All milkers of cows should understand that the udder and teats are highly organized, and consequently very sensitive; and these facts should be taken into consideration by amateur milkers, especially when their first essay is made on a young animal after the advent of her first calf, and that one just taken from her. At this period, the hard tugging and squeezing to which many poor dumb brutes have to submit in consequence of the application of hard-fisted, callous, or inexperienced fingers, is a barbarity of the very worst kind; for it often converts a docile creature into a vicious one, from which condition it is extremely difficult, if not impossible, to wean her.
Of every one of these requisites both wife and daughter were utterly ignorant. They went talking and laughing into the barn, one with a bright tin pail in her hand, an object which the cow had never before seen, and both made at her, forgetting that they were utter strangers to her. Besides, she was thinking of her absent calf, and did not want to see any thing else. Their appearance and clamor of course frightened her, and as they approached her, so she avoided them. They followed, but she continued to avoid, and once or twice put down her head shook it menacingly, and even made an incipient lunge at them with her sharply pointed horns. These decided demonstrations of anger frightened them in turn, and they forthwith gave up the pursuit of milk in the face of difficulties so unexpected. We got none that night. In the morning we sent for an experienced milker, but she had the utmost difficulty in getting the cow to stand quiet even for a moment. My wife was quite subdued about the matter. It would never do to keep a cow that nobody could milk. She said but little, however—it was her cow. Longer trial produced no more encouraging result, as she seemed untamable, and my wife was glad to have me sell her for twenty dollars, at the same time resolving never again to buy a cow with her first calf.
It was voted unanimously that another should be procured, and that this time the choice should be left to me. Now, I never had any idea of buying poor things of any kind merely because they were cheap. When purchasing or making tools or machinery, I never bought or made any but the very best, as I found that even a good workman could never do a good job with poor tools. So with all my farm implements—I bought the best of their kind that could be had. If my female gardeners had been furnished with heavy and clumsy hoes and rakes, because such were cheap, their mere weight would have disgusted them with the business of hoeing and weeding. So with a cow. It is true, I had become the owner of a magnificent thirty-dollar horse; but it was the only beast I could get hold of at the moment when a horse must be had. Besides, he turned out to be like a singed cat, a vast deal better than he looked.
I had repeatedly heard of a cow in the neighboring town, which was said to yield so much milk as to be the principal support of a small family whose head was a hopeless drunkard. She had cost seventy-five dollars, and had been a present to the drunkard’s wife from one of her relatives. By careful inquiry, I satisfied myself that this cow gave twenty quarts daily, and that five months after calving, and on very indifferent pasture. I went to see her, and then her owner told me she was going to leave the place, and would sell the cow for fifty dollars. I did not hesitate a moment, but paid the money and had the cow brought home the same evening. My wife and daughter had not the least difficulty in learning to milk her. Under their treatment and my improved feeding, we kept her in full flow for a long time. She gave quite as much milk as two ordinary cows, while we had the expense of keeping only one. This I consider genuine good management: the best is always the cheapest.
The cow was never permitted to go out of the barnyard. A trough of water enabled her to drink as often as she needed, but her green food was brought to her regularly three times daily, with double allowance at night. I began by mowing all the little grass-plots about the house and lanes, for in these sheltered nooks the sod sends up a heavy growth far in advance of field or meadow. But this supply was soon exhausted, though it lasted more than a week: besides, these usually neglected nooks afforded several mowings during the season, and the repeated cuttings produced the additional advantage of maintaining the sod in beautiful condition, as well as getting rid of numberless weeds. When the grass had all been once mowed over, we resorted to the clover. This also was mowed and taken to her; and by this treatment my little clover-field held out astonishingly. Long before I had gone over it once, the portion first mowed was up high enough to be mowed again. Indeed, we did secure some hay in addition. In this way both horse and cow were soiled. When the clover gave out, the green corn which I had sowed in rows was eighteen inches to two feet high, and in capital condition to cut and feed. It then took the place of clover. Both horse and cow devoured it with high relish. It was the extra sweet corn now so extensively cultivated in New Jersey for market, and contained an excess of saccharine matter, which made it not only very palatable, but which sensibly stimulated the flow of milk.
The yield of green food which this description of corn gives to the acre, when thus sowed, is enormous. Not having weighed it, I cannot speak as to the exact quantity, but should judge it to be at least seven times that of the best grass or clover. Even without cutting up with a straw-knife, the pigs ate it with equal avidity. In addition to this, the cow was fed morning and night with a little bran. The unconsumed corn, after being dried where it grew, was cut and gathered for winter fodder, and when cut fine and mixed with turnips which had been passed through a slicer, kept the cow in excellent condition. She of course got many an armful of cabbage-leaves during the autumn and all through the winter, with now and then a sprinkling of sliced pumpkins, from which the seeds had first been taken, as they are sure to diminish the flow of milk.
Thus I was obliged to lay out no money for either horse or cow, except the few dollars expended for bran. By this treatment I secured all the manure they made. By feeding the barnyard itself, as well as the hog-pen, with green weeds and whatever litter and trash could be gathered up, the end of the season found me with a huge manure pile, all nicely collected under a rough shed, out of reach of drenching rain, hot sun, and wasting winds. I certainly secured thrice as much in one season as had ever been made on that place in three. In addition to this, the family had had more milk than they could use, fresh, rich, and buttery. Even the pigs fell heir to an occasional bucket of skim-milk.
When our city friends came to spend a day or two with us, we were able to astonish them with a tumbler of thick cream, instead of the usual staple beverages of the tea-table. My wife evidently felt a sort of pride in making a display of this kind, and Kate invariably spread herself by taking our visitors to the barnyard, to let them see how expert she had become at milking. When they remarked, at table, on the surpassing richness of the cream, as well as the milk, my wife was very apt to reply—
“Yes, but when your turn comes to go in the country, be particular not to buy a cheap cow.”