The extreme importance of care and attention to these points cannot be over-estimated. The wild cows grazing on the plains of South America are said to give only about three or four quarts a day at the height of the flow; and many an owner of large herds in Texas, it is said, has too little milk for family use, and sometimes receives his supply of butter from the New York market. There is, therefore, a constant tendency to dry up in milch cows; and it must be guarded against with special care, till the habit of yielding a large quantity, and yielding it long, becomes fixed in the young animal, when, with proper care, it may easily be kept up. If gentle and mild treatment is observed and persevered in, the operation of milking appears to be one of pleasure to the animal, as it undoubtedly is; but if an opposite course is pursued,--if, at every restless movement, caused, perhaps, by pressing a sore teat, the animal is harshly spoken to,--she will be likely to learn to kick as a habit, and it will be difficult to overcome it ever afterwards. To induce quiet and readiness to give down the milk freely, it is better that the cow should be fed at milking-time with cut feed, or roots, placed within her easy reach. I have never practised milking more than twice a day, because in spring and summer other farm-work was too pressing to allow of it; but there is no doubt that, for some weeks after calving, and in the height, of the flow, the cows ought, if possible, to be milked regularly three times a day--at early morning, noon, and night. Every practical dairyman knows that cows thus milked give a larger quantity of milk than if milked only twice, though it may not be quite so rich; and in young cows, no doubt, it has a tendency to promote the development of the udder and milk-veins. A frequent milking stimulates an increased secretion, therefore, and ought never to be neglected in the milk-dairy, either in the case of young cows or very large milkers, at the height of the flow, which will ordinarily be for two or three months after calving. The charge of this branch of the dairy should generally be intrusted to women. They are more gentle and winning than men. The same person should milk the same cow regularly, and not change from one to another, unless there are special reasons for it. There being a wide difference in the quality as well as in the quantity of milk of different cows, no dairyman should neglect to test the milk of each new addition to his dairy stock, whether it be an animal of his own raising or one brought from abroad. A lactometer is a very convenient instrument here; but any one can set the milk of each cow separately at first, and give it a fair and full trial, when the difference will be found to be great. Economy will dictate that the cows least adapted to the purpose should be disposed of, and their place supplied by better ones.