SYSTEMATIC CLASSIFICATION. 179 



her yield affected. Beware of a cow with a white, thick, 

 unpliable skin, with coarse, harsh hair, particularly on the 

 back of the udder, where it will often be found long, plenty, 

 and wiry, and feeling harsh and dry to the hand : this is 

 most often found on white skins that are free from any dan- 

 druff. They may, if they have a large escutcheon (and they 

 very often do), give a large quantity of milk for a time ; but 

 it will be bluish, and of a serous character, making little or 

 no butter, and, if any, of a white, lardlike appearance. 



guexon's classification. 



In the last revised edition of Guenon's book he revised 

 the whole system, simplifying and improving it. He classi- 

 fies the various shapes of escutcheons into ten classes. 

 Each one of these ten classes has six orders. Each class 

 represents a gradual reduction in the quantity given, and 

 each order represents a gradual reduction in the time ; so 

 that a cow of the first class and first order will represent a 

 very much larger escutcheon of the Flanders shape, and a 

 larger number of quarts, and a longer time for milking, than 

 the first class and sixth order. And the first class, first order, 

 will give twenty quarts, and milk nine months ; while the 

 cow of tenth class and sixth order will only give three quarts, 

 and milk three months. The one is most valuable, while 

 the other is utterly worthless. If the system enables the 

 purchaser to pick out the one, and to discard the other, it 

 will need no one to praise it to him. 



Guenon thus made the perfect shape the representative 

 escutcheon of its class ; and just so much as it varies from 

 that, and gets smaller, just so fast does it descend in the 

 orders of that class. Suppose the first order of every class 

 should represent one hundred, then the next size smaller in 

 that class may be represented by ninety, the next by eighty, 

 and the fourth order by sixty ; for they drop much faster, in 

 proportion, as they descend in the class to the sixth order. 



Now, as a general rule, it is safest not to buy a cow 

 below the fourth order of any class, and, of most of them, 

 unsafe below the third order. 



The ten classes and six orders are represented by sixty 

 escutcheons, and to each class there is a bastard escutcheon, 

 making ten more, or seventy, to which we may add ten classes 



