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THE INFALLIBLE MARKS OF THE MILKING QUALITIES OF COWS.--M. Francis
Guenon, of France, has published a treatise, in which he shows, by
external marks alone, the quality and quantity of milk of any cow, and
the length of time she will continue to give milk. These marks are so
plain, that they are applicable to calves but a few weeks old, as well
as to cows. Whoever will take a little pains to understand this, can
know, when he proposes to buy a cow, how much milk she will give, with
proper feed and treatment, the quality of her milk, and the length of
time she will give milk after having been gotten with calf. If the
farmer has heifer-calves, some of which he proposes to send to the
butcher and others to raise, he may know which will make poor milkers,
and which good ones, and raise the good and kill the poor. Thus, he may
see a calf that his neighbor is going to slaughter, and, from these
external marks, he may discover that it would make one of the best
milking cows of the neighborhood; it would then pay to buy and raise it,
though he might have to kill and throw away his own, which he could see
would make a poor cow if raised. Thus, all extraordinary milkers would
be raised, and all poor ones be slaughtered: this alone would improve
the whole stock of the country twenty-five per cent. in as many years.
Attention has been called to this, in the most emphatic manner, by _The
New York Tribune_--a paper that always takes a deep interest in whatever
will advance the great industrial interests of the whole people--and
yet, this announcement will be new to a vast number of farmers into
whose hands this volume will fall. To many it will be utterly
incredible, especially when we inform them that the indications are,
mainly, the growth of the hair, on the cow behind, from the roots of the
teats upward. "Impossible!" many a practical, common-sense man will say.
But that same man will acknowledge that a bull has a different color,
different neck, and different horns, left in his natural state, from
those he would exhibit if altered to an ox. Why is it not equally
credible that the growth of the hair, &c., should be affected by the
secretion and flow of the milk on that part of the system where those
operations are principally carried on? But, aside from all reasonings on
the subject, the fact is certain, and whoever may read this article may
test its correctness, as applied to his own cows or those of his
neighbor. The