It is likewise to be presumed that the quickness of growth will materially affect the composition of grasses, as well as of other vegetables. Your gardener will tell you that if radishes are slow in growth they will be tough and woody; that asparagus melts in eating, like butter, and salad is crisp when grown quickly. The same effect will, I apprehend, be found in grasses of slow growth: they will contain more of woody fibre, with less of starch or sugar. The quality of butter grown on poor pastures is characterized by greater solidity than on rich feeding pastures. The cows, having to travel over more space, require a greater supply of the elements of respiration, whilst the grasses grown on these poor pastures contain, in all probability, less of these in a _digestible form_ available for respiration. The like result seems probable as from common winter treatment--a produce of butter less in quantity, and containing a greater proportion of margarine, and a less of oleine. It is well known that pastures vary greatly in their butter-producing properties; there is, however, as far as I am aware, no satisfactory explanation of this. If you watch cows on depasture, you observe them select their own food; if you supply cows in stall alike with food, they will also select for themselves. I give rape-cake as a mixture to all, and induce them to eat the requisite quantity; yet some will select the rape-cake first, and eat it up clean, whilst others rather neglect it till towards the close of their meal, and then leave pieces in the trough. Two Alderneys,--the only cows of the kind I have as yet had,--whose butter-producing qualities are well known, are particularly fond of rape-cake, and never leave a morsel. May not these animals be prompted by their instinct to select such food as is best suited to their wants and propensities? If so, it seems of the greatest importance that the dairyman should be informed of the properties of food most suitable for his purpose, especially whilst in a stall, where they have little opportunity of selecting. It appears worth the attention of our society to make inquiries as to the localities which are known as producing milk peculiarly rich in butter. When travelling in Germany, I well recollect being treated with peculiarly rich milk, cream, and butter, on my tour between Dresden and Toplitz, at the station or resting-place on the chaussée or turnpike-road, before you descend a very steep incline to the valley in which Toplitz is situated. I travelled this way after an interval of several years, when the same treat was again offered. It was given as a rarity, and can only be accounted for by the peculiar adaptation of the herbage of the country for the production of butter.