The milking or cow-house should be situated within a short distance of the dairy. If it were within a few steps it would be so much the better, as the milkers could then empty their pails into the pans while the milk was warm. The cream would then rise more quickly and more abundantly than if left to cool first. Milk is usually poured through a sieve or cheese-cloth into the pans, or else strained, before using for domestic purposes. Where it is not strained, the cream is always poured through a cheese-cloth into the churn.

Mode Of Building

The building should be at least sixteen feet wide inside, to allow good room for stalls and feeding troughs, and for comfortable room behind the cows. Their troughs should be placed three feet from the wall, so that their food could be put in on that side of the building. It should join the root-house. The floor should be paved with bricks, pretty high where the cows would stand, and sloping down to a gutter behind them. The gutter should be made with a good fall, so that no manure could remain long in it. It would be well if a cesspool could be made at a little distance to receive the drainage, so that no effluvia from it could reach the milking-house.

It would be a good plan to have the north and south walls wholly enclosed, with the exception of a door for entrance into the turnip and chaff-house, and the east and west ends fitted up with double folding-doors, in a line with that part of the floor behind the cows. By this means, if both ends were left open in the summer, a current of cool air would go through the place, and either one or the other might be closed when the cold wind came from the east or west in winter.

The calf-pens would have to be placed at each end. A few air-bricks might be put into the south wall, about four or five feet above the cows' heads, and a boarded loft over the whole building, the length of which would depend on the number of cows kept. If numerous, a row of cow-stalls (which might be double), on either side of the building, with a path down the middle for the men, would be an advantage.

The strictest cleanliness should be practised, and clean dry beds provided for the cattle when housed, and everything done that is required to make them comfortable.

It would be advisable to have the pastures near the milking-house where it is possible, for when they are fetched from a long distance they sometimes get hurried, and their milk becomes overheated. Whoever drives them should be urged to do it gently, and taught the law of kindness. Neither whips nor sticks should be used if cows are expected to yield their milk down freely. If treated with gentle kindness they will become attached to their keeper or herdsman, and will place themselves in a quiet position to be milked, even in the open field.

It is dangerous to drive cows a long distance when near the time of calving.