Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: On town milk / by John Chalmers Morton. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.
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![Of a small shabby-looking little cow I saw there the other day the following history was given me: — She was in heavy milk when attacked by the cattle plague in the summer of 1866, which of course entirely stopped her milk She recovered, however, and her average produce amounted to twenty quarts a day for nearly three months after her recovery. It averaged seventeen quarts a day during the next six months ; and twelve quarts a da) for another six months; and it is now shrinking rapidly, as she is in calf; but she is still giving seven quarts a day. We occa- sionally meet with extraordinary examples of this kind, where cows remain for years together in milk without breeding; but, like all other agricultural maxima, they have little or no influence on the general average of experience. I have now to relate the experience of a year at Lodge Farm, Barking, notwithstanding that, owing to the disaster in August, when more than half the cattle were slaughtered by orders of the Cattle Flague Inspector, the returns do not so accurately repre- sent ordinary experience as would otherwise have been the case. I give in the following table the number of cows milked each week up to the end of 1867, the quantity of milk sold each week, and the daily average per cow during each week. It will be seen that 126 cattle were killed in the middle of August. We have not ventured to purchase again till lately. Twenty newly calved cows were bought two months ago, and are now averaging rather more than three gallons a day apiece. But there are a large number of cows giving hardly more than six or seven quarts a day upon an average, which have been long at the pail, and which there is no profit in fattening. Most of them accord- ingly have been got in calf, and are drying rapidly. This, of course, is much against the average of the year. On the other hand, a large number of cows were killed off in full milk. So that while there are a hundred cows or more which have been ten or eleven months at the pail, and which pull down the annual average, there are more than a hundred on the list of the year which were only two or three months in milk when slaughtered ; and, they, on the other hand, contributing more than the ordinary daily quantity, increase the average. It will be found on an examination of the following table that about 139,746^ gallons have been given in 65 weeks by 57,334 days' milk of a cow. This is equal to rather more than 9] quarts a day per cow; which very closely resembles Mr. Banter's expe- rience at Golder's Green. See opposite page. The true significance of these figures will perhaps better appear if the amounts which they indicate for twelve months be taken out. In the table at p. 28 accordingly I have given the quantity](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b22298435_0028.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
