The new system, therefore, of selling the milk instead of making butter and cheese is advantageous to the labourer by affording more employment in grass districts.  It is steady work, too, lasting the entire year round, and well paid.  The stock of cows in such cases is kept up to the very highest that the land will carry, which, again, gives more work.  Although the closing of the cheese lofts and the superannuation of the churn has reduced the number of female servants in the house, yet that is more than balanced by the extra work without.  The cottage families, it is true, lose the buttermilk which some farmers used to allow them; but wages are certainly better.

There has been, in fact, a general stir and movement in dairy districts since the milk selling commenced, which has been favourable to labour.  A renewed life and energy has been visible on farms where for generations things had gone on in the same sleepy manner.  Efforts have been made to extend the area available for feeding by grubbing hedges and cultivating pieces of ground hitherto given over to thistles, rushes, and rough grasses.  Drains have been put in so that the stagnant water in the soil might not cause the growth of those grasses which cattle will not touch.  Fresh seed has been sown, and ‘rattles’ and similar plants destructive to the hay crop have been carefully eradicated.  New gales, new carts, and traps, all exhibit the same movement.

The cowyards in many districts were formerly in a very dilapidated condition.  The thatch of the sheds was all worn away, mossgrown, and bored by the sparrows.  Those in which the cows were placed at calving time were mere dark holes.  The floor of the yard was often soft, so that the hoofs of the cattle trod deep into it—­a perfect slough in wet weather.  The cows themselves were of a poor character, and in truth as poorly treated, for the hay was made badly—­carelessly harvested, and the grass itself not of good quality—­nor were the men always very humane, thinking little of knocking the animals about.

Quite a change has come over all this.  The cows now kept are much too valuable to be treated roughly, being selected from shorthorn strains that yield large quantities of milk.  No farmer now would allow any such knocking about.  The hay itself is better, because the grass has been improved, and it is also harvested carefully.  Rickcloths prevent rain from spoiling the rising rick, mowing machines, haymaking machines, and horse rakes enable a spell of good weather to be taken advantage of, and the hay got in quickly, instead of lying about till the rain returns.  As for the manure, it is recognised to be gold in another shape, and instead of being trodden under foot by the cattle and washed away by the rain, it is utilised.  The yard is drained and stoned so as to be dry—­a change that effects a saving in litter, the value of which has greatly risen.  Sheds have been new thatched, and generally renovated, and even new roads laid down across the farms, and properly macadamised, in order that the milk carts might reach the highway without the straining and difficulty consequent upon wheels sinking half up to the axles in winter.