THE SELECTION OF DAIRY COWS BY OUTWARD MARKS.

By Captain J. C. MORRIS, of Susquehanna.

I have been requested to give you my views, and particularly my experience, in the selection of milch cows that would be profitable for the dairy, and also to give you the outward marks and signs that indicate such a cow, especially in illustration of the "Guénon system," so called.

This subject of selecting cows, is, to me, very familiar, and has been for the last twenty-five years. It is going over the same ground that has been gone over in every conceivable form that man's imagination could place it in, and always striking at the same points. Nevertheless, it will have to be repeated over and over again, until every dairyman and dairyman's son is impressed with its importance, and interested in the dissemination of such knowledge.

You, no doubt, have had such cows described to you many times before, and I am not egotistical enough to suppose for a moment that I can give you many (if any) new points. Neither am I, in imagination, going to waft myself on seas of milk or ships of amber, but by plain common sense, plain talk, and by the drawings that I will show you, pointing out the different marks and signs of a good cow, I hope to impress upon your minds that a good cow can be selected without the trouble and expense of keeping her a year before you have come to the realizing sense that you have made a losing investment.

The growing magnitude of the dairy interests of our State is, probably, only realized by a very few, even of the most sanguine. I supposed that the principal interests of this portion of our State was in your extensive production of oil, and that the agricultural interest was of minor importance; but I am glad to find you interested in other kinds of oil besides petroleum. I freely admit that I was quite ignorant of the extent of your dairy productions in this portion of our State, until recently, though living in a dairy district myself. Bradford, Susquehanna, Wyoming, and Wayne, all having a reputation for their fine butter and cheese, and living very much upon that interest. With all this reputation, I do say, that I doubt very much if there is any other class of business that, as a whole, is done in seemingly so indifferent a manner.

There is no animal that has been bred so carelessly for the business for which it was intended as the milch cow, and no class of men so blind to their own interests as the dairymen. They are, as a general rule, purchasing, feeding, and milking cows which barely, if at all, pay for their keeping; raising calves of the same sort from cows that are not fit to breed from; using sires without the least consideration whether they are from good milking families, or asking the question whether their dams ever gave any milk! With this reckless way of breeding, how is it to be expected that dairying can be a success?

To breed superior cows for the dairy, the first point is, to select your cows regardless of race; but do not purchase a cow because she is cheap, they seldom, if ever, pay in the dairy. Such as have shown themselves to be deep, rich milkers, whose ancestors have shown and proved themselves good cows, and who stamp the same characteristics upon their offspring, seldom, if ever, miss, providing they have a fair chance. By selecting a bull from a cow of the same good qualities, and raising and selecting

your own calves, I will guarantee that, in a very few years, you will have a herd of cows that will not disappoint you, either in quality or quantity of milk, providing you give them the proper food, and enough of it, to manufacture milk from, for you are all aware that the cow is but a machine for secreting vegetable substances into milk.

The sire should be as carefully selected as the cow, looking back for generations, to be certain that there is no break in the milking qualities of either dam or sire. Use a thorough-bred bull. I will not designate the breed, for in so doing I might trample on the opinions of other men, who have as good a right to their judgment as I have to mine; but by using such a bull you have his pedigree to assist you in ascertaining the milking qualities of his ancestors. Who would think of using the Clydesdale horse upon a thorough-bred mare for the race course, or a hackney upon Goldsmith Maid, expecting her to produce a trotter? Yet, gentlemen, how many of you use a little scrub bull, without any knowledge of his ancestry, expecting (if you give it more than a passing thought) to raise calves which are to take the place of your worn out cows?

It is not always the "handsome" cow, I will presently describe to you, that gives the largest quantity or the best quality of milk, for I have seen among the natives some very ordinary and ill-shaped cows, that were extra fine milkers; but they, like all other good cows, were well marked both in the escutheon and the lacteal veins.

I would breed from such a cow, using a thorough-bred bull, with undoubted milking qualities, for it is an easy matter to breed all the fine points as far as beauty is concerned.

If the judges at our county or township fairs were men who understood the points and marks of a good dairy cow, and would not have their judg. ments swerved by the general outline of symmetry and other points of beauty in the animal, but would carefully examine the texture and turns of the hair, the skin, flesh and other signs and marks, and decide according to that rule, showing and explaining to the inquiring minds why they have given the premium in the case, they would be doing their county or town, and in fact the whole country, a lasting service. But we cannot have such judges at any of our fairs and exhibitions, until our men and boys are educated in such knowledge. On the contrary, I am sorry to say, there is very little regard shown in selecting judges as to their qualifications to decide intelligently upon the subject required of them; many of them showing little or no knowledge of the business before them.

There is another point to be looked after, and that is, the care and training of the heifer the first year after her coming into profit. This is a point I look upon as very important, and not receiving anything like the attention it deserves and requires. A good heifer can be easily spoilt by careless milking, and allowing her to dry up after being in milk a few months, for she is very certain to go dry at the same time ever after. She should be well fed, both in her first and second years, and milked nearly up to her coming into profit the third year.

My own experience tends to the belief that a heifer coming into profit at two years old, provided she has been well fed, and grown to a suitable size, makes the best cow for dairy purposes, being stimulated in her milk secreting qualities. While being fed and forced for size until she is three years old, tends to develop the laying on of muscle or beef, and it requires a longer time to develop her milking qualities, though she may have all the points of a milker.

All cows are inclined to deteriorate, and nothing but good breeding, good

feeding, and good care will keep them up to the standard you wish to have them in for milk.

The best cows are of a medium size, as a rule, and small boned. The head is small and rather long, with thick wide lips which give the muzzle a flat appearance. Eyes large and bright, with a placid expression; ears large and thin, with soft, silky hair, and with rich orange-colored dandruff on the inside; horns set on a high pate, inclining forward at the base, and light, tapering, and clean. The annual rings on the horns not deep, though depth of the rings indicates the condition in which the annimal has been kept during the year. When well kept, they are indistinct and blended together. Neck long, clean, and thin, but not slender; well cut up under the throat, and thickening as it joins the shoulder, giving the shoulder a finished appearance. The brisket rather thin, well down and clean from the dewlaps; shoulders should be thin at the top of the blade, broad at the points, which should be nicely rounded; the shoulders lower than the hips. Fore legs clean and straight, and squarely placed under the shoulder. Back inclining upwards towards the hip; chine full, which gives a full appearance to the crops; ribs rather straight and flat, full over the heart, showing a strong constitution, for everything depends on that in a milch cow. She must have plenty of room for the action of her heart and lungs, giving free circulation to her blood and her breathing apparatus. You all know, gentlemen, that in selecting a horse for endurance and work, whether for speed or draft, you look for the marks of a good constitution, and you look for them in the chest and heart as well as in other places, and although we are not looking for speed in a cow, yet we do want health, vigor, and constitution. The loins should be broad and hips wide and high; rumps up even with the hips, though I have seen very good cows with low rump, but they have in every case been otherwise uncommonly well marked. Pelvis should be wide, giving plenty of room for the tail twist, or perinaeum, wide but well cut up, which in all good cows must be the case, to give plenty of room for the udder. Thighs thin, the hind legs a little crooked, fine below the hock with a good-sized, long foot. Doctor Loring, of Massachusetts, who is considered one of the best authorites in that State, says: No cow can do the work of a dairy that has a small short foot." The tail should be long and tapering, but I cannot find any required length necessary. The udder should be long and broad, well set up between the thighs, with good sized teats set well apart. The belly should sag a little in front of the udder, and rise as it approaches the brisket, and should be compared with the size of the cow. Do not look to the color of the hair, horns, or muzzle, for they can be bred any color or shape.

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Now, after this general discription of the "the handsome cow," we will go to the points which I am called upon particularly to detail to you, and without which there can be little or no milk, for all good milkers have them. The hair must be soft, indicating a soft elastic skin, which you will find to be the case by taking the skin in your hand, and if it be soft and pliable, like a kid glove, you are safe for either milk or beef. If, on the contrary, the skin feels harsh and hard, with a crackling sensation as it passes out of your hand, let him or her alone. You can have neither a good cow nor an animal that can be fed for beef. You never saw soft, smooth, bright hair grow upon such a skin. This is the first test and an infallible one. Next pass you hand under the belly of the cow and you will find the so-called "milk veins." They are also an infalliable indication of the good qualities of a cow, the larger the veins the better are the indications. In a very good cow you will sometimes find the veins branching off, and making four instead of two, but their general capacity is the same.

The larger the veins, and the more irregular or angular they are, the more sure you are that the cow is one of the first-class milkers. You will find two orifices in the belly of the cow, where these veins enter, and they will be in size according to the size of the veins; they should be of the same size or she is a blemished cow. Also you will find by passing your hand along her back cups or cavities, which is another indication.

Before proceeding further, I must tell you something of the "Guénon," whose name has become so famous.

Mr. Guènon was a Frenchman, living near Bordeaux, who, in 1828, first, called attention to a system he had discovered by which a cow could be judged as to the quantity and quality of milk she would give, and the length of time she would give it after calving.

In 1837, after twenty years of observation and research, Mr. Guènon had succeeded in discovering or establishing certain natural and positive signs which constituted the basis of his system. At that date the Agricultural Society of Bordeaux appointed a committee (for they could not but look on with distrust at the proposed trials of his method—a method which was to be proof against error) to investigate and examine the system.

After a large number of cows and heifers were examined in different localities and different pastures, the committee pronounced his system "infallible," and the society presented him a gold medal; proclaimed him a member of the Agricultural Society of Bordeaux; ordered that fifty copies of his work be subscribed for, and a thousand copies of the report be distributed among the agricultural societies of France.

This is a point for our State Board to reflect upon.

Some time after this, I think in the following year, the Agricultural Society of Aurillac in its report said: "The method of Monsieur Guénon has not the merit of being a brilliant theory; it rests upon facts and long experience. It is only after repeated trials, and twenty-five years of toilsome researches, that its author has accomplished the task of establishing it."

They also awarded him about the same as the Agricultural Society of Bordeaux; after which the National Assembly's Committee on Agriculture unanimously voted to confer on him a pension of three thousand francs a year in consideration of his discovery of an infallible method of determining the capacities of milch cows. Now, gentlemen, after the endorsement of such men as must have been placed on these committees, is it not time that you should look into it?

At the age of fourteen, young Guénon with the habits of all boys of his station in life, for he was the son of a gardener, drove his father's only cow to and from the pasture, and while carding and scratching his old companion, he observed a sort of bran or dandruff detach itself in considerable quantities from certain spots on her hind quarters, where the hair met from different directions, or what we call a "quirl" in the hair. This attracted his quick sense of observation, for he had become possesed with the idea that he was destined to make some important discovery in the branch of industry which he followed. The cow, which he drove and milked, was a good milker, and comparison was now what he needed. He knew his old cow perfectly, and after comparing many other cows with his own, he came to the conclusion that there were marks by which he could designate a good cow from a poor one. He worked on, year after year, until he had got his method so systematized that he was ready for an examination, and in 1828, he first called attention to the system he had discovered; which I will now go back to describe and explain:

The udder should be covered with a soft downy coat of hair, and in front

of it, the hair begins to turn its course back between the teats. Its width is to be examined; for the wider the belt or shield the better and surer are the indications. This belt or escutcheon runs up to the pelvis, and must be examined, as its width, without a break, is the points on which Guénon forms his opinions as to his best cows, to which he gives the name of "The Flanders Cow." That, with the width on the thigh, is a sure indication of the best cows. I never saw it fail, and have yet to find my first mistake. The only trouble is, there are but few cows which have it in a perfect form. The escutcheon varies in shape and outline, which induced Mr. Guénon to divide them into eight classes, and eight orders in each class. The first order being the best, giving the most milk, and the eighth order being the poorest, as you can readily see by examining the drawings.

There are exceptions, such as Guénon calls "The Bastard," and some others, (among whom is my friend's and your neighbor in the adjoining State, Mr. Baldwin, of Ohio,) "The Bogus Cow," whose marks I will here explain. These are just the same, to the casual eye, as they are upon any of the classes, to all appearances, both in escutcheon, and in their milking qualities. They are as fine milkers, as far as quantity is concerned, for the first two or three months after calving, or until they are again in calf. Within two or three weeks after this, they begin to lessen in quantity and quality, and in a couple of months they are worthless for the dairy. This I know, not only from inquiry; but, also, by occular demonstrations for I have such a cow in my own dairy, and have kept her for three years, experimenting upon her. As long as she is kept from breeding, she is as good a cow as I have for quantity of milk, and of fair quality, until after she gets with calf. This cow, as I said before, has all the marks of a Flanders cow-large, knotty, milk veins, large, wide escutcheon, running wide and full up to and around the pelvis, two mirrors, large and well formed-but on examining the escutcheon closely, I found the hair thro' the center of the escutcheon, and up the pelvis, long, coarse, and bristly-different from that of any other cow I have in the diary. The skin has a lightish red appearance. What little dandruff there is, is dry and hard, very much of the road dust appearance.

I have found but few first class cows of the Bogus kind, where they were born so, but I have found several that were made bogus by bad training and careless milking.

Now, gentlemen, you can readily see the value of this system, for by a knowledge of it, you can tell just where to place your stock in the different classes and grades. You can pick out your best cows, and part with or fatten your worst. You can tell which yearling or calf to keep, and which to dispose of to the butcher. I will say to you, that I have never been deceived in purchasing a cow since I studied Mr. Guénon's system, and took it for my guide.

A late writer in the Country Gentleman says, "there is no royal road to cow knowledge; " but I say, gentlemen, there is a royal road, and he who will follow out this system understandingly will not be deceived. Guénon was the first discoverer, and like all discoveries, it has been somewhat improved upon. Some other points have been discovered by gentlemen of our own State; Messrs. Harvey and Hazard, of Chester county; Mr. Blight, of Philadelphia; and also Mr. Baldwin, of Ohio, have made valuable additions to it, but do not undertake to detract one tithe from the general principle.

Thanking you for your attention, I close my remarks, but will answer any questions you will give me to the best of my knowledge, and will ex