We advise regular hours of milking night and morning, and kind, gentle treatment, carding in winter, cleanliness and thorough ventilation of stable at all times. In summertime, if confined in a yard, a thin sheet to keep off the flies will be found very comfortable for the cow, and profitable to the owner. I presume some will ridicule the idea of blanketing the cow, but why not as well as the horse? Again, if confined in a yard, she should have plenty of clean pure water, and plenty of shade. Keeping a cow, with us, is not altogether a matter of fancy or pleasure, but of convenience, economy, comfort, profit, and health, in having pure sweet milk and fresh butter. [Illustration] ALFALFA OR LUCERN. BY SAM’L C. HAMMER, DOWNEY CITY, CAL. I have lived in Tennessee, in Texas, and now reside in California. I have been using Alfalfa for some eight or ten years, and from my own personal care of and attention to this article, I maintain one can obtain more milk the year round from it, without change to other food, than from any one thing grown. Besides, Alfalfa can be grown at less expense, and is attended with less labor, whether fed green or cured, than any other feed. Alfalfa can be grown in Canada, it is said. If so, then any one has the chance to try this wonderful friend to the farmer. Once sown on deeply cultivated land, free of weeds, it is good for ten years, or even more, with us. Twenty pounds is abundant seed for an acre—some think too much; but it should be sown thickly. Let it stand thick, and it is finer and more tender. Where sown sparsely it becomes woody and coarse. It can be cut here as early as March, where mowing and not grazing is adhered to, and it should never be grazed or “staked” (fed off by tethered cattle). From seven to nine cuttings can be obtained from it, and from fifteen to twenty tons of cured hay a year made to the acre; that is, if on good land and if the crop fully occupies the ground, and is cut just as a few scattering blooms are observed. This hay must be cured as rapidly as possible, raked in windrows and bunched the second day, rather letting it cure in bunches than in any other manner, to prevent leaves falling off; then housing or “shedding” it soon as possible, sprinkling salt through it as stacked, to prevent mould.