DAIRI, or DAIRO, in the history of Japan, is the sovereign pontiff of the Japanese, or, according to Kämpfer, the hereditary ecclesiastical monarch of Japan. In effect, the empire of Japan is under two sovereigns, namely, an ecclesiastical one called the daïro, and a secular one who bears the title of kubo. The latter is the emperor, and the former the oracle of the religion of the country.
DAIRY or DAIRYING, that branch of husbandry of which the object is to convert the produce of the soil into milk, by means of the domesticated animals, and to prepare it for use in different forms.
The only animal kept in considerable numbers for its milk, in this country, is the cow. Though it is still the practice in some parts of Britain to draw a quantity of milk from ewes, after their lambs are weaned, and a few goats and asses are kept chiefly for their milk; yet in the case of sheep, the milk is a very subordinate part of the produce, and the medicinal quality of the milk of the two latter species of animals, of which the number is quite inconsiderable, does not allow them to be considered as part of a dairy stock.
Milk is used either in the state in which it is drawn from the cow, or, after its component parts have been separated, in the shape of cream, or butter, or cheese, with butter milk, skimmed milk, or whey. Hence, to give a general view of this branch of husbandry, it is necessary to arrange dairies under three great divisions, according to the principal object of each, namely, new milk, butter, and cheese dairies. Nor is it any objection to this arrangement, that, at certain seasons of the year, or owing to temporary causes, it may be found necessary to unite the labours of all the three in any one of these divisions. It is enough that the chief purpose and general management be different, to entitle them to separate consideration, because these take their rise in the very different circumstances of each class, and give to it a determinate character. The treatment of the cows, and the value of their produce, are by no means the same in all the three, and the animals
themselves would require to be selected with a view to the particular object of each; the cow that yields the greatest quantity of milk, and is on this account preferred for a new milk dairy, not being always the most profitable one in a cheese or butter dairy.
I. New Milk Dairies.—It is only in or near large towns New that dairies of this description can be established upon a scale of any extent, and there they are found in great variety. It will give a sufficient view of what may be considered the best systems of management, to mention the practice of the London and Edinburgh dairymen.
I. The cows kept for supplying the metropolis with milk Cow are of a large size, with short horns, and known by the name of Holderness cattle, from a district of that name in Yorkshire, though they do not now all come from thence, but many of them from a similar stock in that and the neighbouring counties. They are bought from the breeders when three or four years old, and in calf, and exposed by the dealers at the fairs and markets in Middlesex, particularly at Islington, where there is a fresh supply from the country every week, by means of which the London cow-keepers are enabled to keep up their stocks. These cows are preferred on account of the quantity of their milk, without much regard to its quality. A few of the cow-keepers have very large stocks, nearly a thousand having been sometimes in the possession of one individual. The whole number required for the supply of London and its environs with milk is about 8500, the produce of which a few years ago was estimated at £38 a year each, or £323,000 in all, said to yield a profit of 1.6 per cow to their owners. But the sum actually paid for milk, including the
profits of the retailer, has been stated at £626,233 per annum.
The cow-keepers breed very few cattle, and those only from favourite cows, which become so merely from their giving much milk, and with very little attention to the choice of their bulls. Cows of this description are usually kept five, or even sometimes seven years. When they are allowed to become dry, with a view to their being disposed of, they soon become fat on their former diet, and are then sold to the butcher.
During the night the cows are confined in stalls. About three o'clock in the morning each has an half bushel basket of grains, to which salt, not much more than an ounce a day, is sometimes added. From four o'clock to half past six they are milked by the retail milk-dealers, who contract with the cow-keepers for the milk of a certain number of cows, at so much for eight quarts. When the milking is finished, a bushel basket of turnips is given to each cow; and very soon afterwards they have an allotment, in the proportion of one truss to ten cows, of grassy and soft meadow hay, which had been the most early mown, and cured of the greenest colour. These several feedings are generally made before eight o'clock in the morning, at which time the cows are usually turned into the cow-yard, though in one large dairy at Islington they are constantly confined to the stake. About twelve o'clock they are again confined to their stalls, and served with the same quantity of grains as they had in the morning. About half past one o'clock in the afternoon, the milking commences in the manner before described, and continues till near three, when the cows are again served with the same quantity of turnips, and, about an hour afterwards, with the same distribution of hay. Along with, or instead of turnips, mangel wurzel is now much used in these dairies.
This mode of feeding generally continues during the turnip season, which is from the month of September to the month of May. During the other months of the year they are fed with grains, cabbages, tares, and the foregoing proportion of rauen, or second cut meadow-hay, and are continued to be fed and milked with the same regularity as before described, until they are turned out to grass, when they continue in the field all night; and even during this last period they are frequently fed with grains, which are kept sweet and eatable for a considerable length of time, by being buried in pits made for that purpose. There are about ten bulls to a stock of three hundred cows. The calves are generally sent to Smithfield market at one, two, or three days old. The quantity of milk given by each cow, on an average, is nine quarts a day, or 3285 quarts in the year. The weekly expense of food is estimated in the Middlesex report at 10s. 3d. and the other charges about £5. 7s. per annum. In 1807, the retailer paid to the cow-keeper for the milk 2½d. and sold it to the consumer at 4½d. per quart; but it is alleged, that by taking off cream, difference of measure, and other means, the retailer obtains a profit of no less than a hundred per cent.
Five or six men only are employed in attending nearly three hundred cows. As one person cannot milk more than eight or nine cows twice a day, that part of the business would necessarily be attended with considerable expense to the cow-keeper, were it not that the retailer, as before observed, agrees for the produce of a certain number of cows, and takes the labour and expense of milking upon himself.
Every cow-house is provided with a milk room, where the milk is measured, and served out by the cow-keeper; and this room is commonly furnished with a pump, to which the retail dealers are said to apply in rotation, not secretly, but openly, before any person who may be standing by, from which they pump water into the milk vessels
at their discretion. The pump is placed there expressly for that purpose, and it is seldom used for any other. Dairy.
2. The greater part of the cows kept in Edinburgh are Edinburgh, also of the short-horned breed, brought from the counties of Berwick, Roxburgh, and Northumberland, and weigh, when fat, from forty to sixty stones avoirdupois. They are purchased by dealers, who drive them to market when they are about to calve, or immediately after calving. Many of them are too old for being kept to advantage on the usual food allowed them in the country, or to be fattened on turnips; and part of them are purchased from hinds or married ploughmen, who have no means of fattening them. A cow which shows a great deal of milk sells in Edinburgh nearly as high as a fat cow of the same weight.
The cow-feeders of Edinburgh do not find it for their interest to keep their cows for more than one year, or even so long, if they can be fattened sooner. Their object is to have as great a quantity of milk as possible in the first instance; and when the cows fall off in milking, as they almost always do between four and six months after calving, to prepare them speedily for the butcher. Most of the cows continue to give a good deal of milk while they are fattening, and even until they are sent to the shambles. It is expected they should sell to the butcher at the price paid by the cow-keeper.
Their food in summer is brewers' and distillers' grains, and wash or dreg, wheat shellings or small bran, grass, and straw; and in winter the same grains, dreg, and bran, with turnips and potatoes, and hay instead of grass. When grains are scarce, cut or chopped hay is mixed with them. Some of them are sent to pasture in fields near the city for about two months during the best of the grass season; but even then a certain number must be kept in the house, for consuming the grains, which are usually purchased by contract for a whole year.
With regard to management, the cow-keepers begin Management. with grains, dreg, and bran, mixed together, at five o'clock in the morning; feed a second time at one o'clock afternoon, and a third from seven to eight in the evening. Grass in summer, and turnips or potatoes in winter, are given at both intervals. A small quantity of straw is laid below the grass, which absorbs its moisture, and is eaten after the grass; and, in winter, straw or hay is given after the turnips. Part of the turnips or potatoes is boiled, particularly when there is a scarcity of grains, and intermixed with them. The expense in summer is said to be 2s. 10½d., and in winter 3s. 7½d. per day, for each cow. The cows are seldom milked more than twice a day; but for about a month after being bought, it is sometimes necessary to milk them three times. The common periods of milking are six o'clock in the morning, from three to four in the afternoon, and, when milked a third time, nine in the evening.
Their produce in milk, when fed as already stated, may Produce. average about seven Scotch pints, or nearly twelve quarts and a half, daily, per cow. When the cows are smaller, and not so well fed, five pints, or about nine quarts, is said to be the average. The price of milk in Edinburgh used to be 6d. per pint, but of late it has been lower, particularly in summer. This is said to be very little more than the price of the food. For interest of money, risk, expenses of management, and profit, there is the manure, worth £3. 10s. for each cow; some savings on the cows while at grass, which costs only 1s. 8d. per day; and probably a small advance of price may be commonly got from the butcher when the cows are skilfully selected and well managed.
There have been instances of cow-feeders contracting with others to retail their milk; but the practice is not common. The cow-keepers generally retail it themselves.